Creatures of Smoke and Shadow
by richardhorrigan
Summary: Strange things are happening at the Weasley house, and Ron has a unique perspective. What does it all mean? The answers could have a major impact on the future of the wizarding world, and on one Hogwarts student in particular. Pre HBP and SLASH.
1. Waiting For The Time To Pass

**Creatures of Smoke and Shadow**

**Chapter One: Waiting For The Time To Pass**

Ronald Weasley sat on his hands, staring out of the bedroom window at the grey morning sky. It had been the same for five days now - constant rain. At the moment, it was coming down in thick sheets. Everything beyond the newly planted (and slightly lopsided) flutterby bush in the back garden was an indistinct grey blob. Ron had planted that bush himself, when his mother had forced him to do some gardening. There hadn't been a sighting of clear blue sky since that day. Ron half wondered whether his mother had done a rain spell to keep him indoors, and out of trouble.

There had been a lot of talk in the last few days, about getting involved in 'matters which didn't concern him'. It turned out that Molly Weasley wasn't altogether happy with her youngest son throwing himself, and his even younger sister, at Death Eaters.

He hadn't exactly done it on purpose, and Ron severely doubted whether his sister would have been deterred by anything that _he_ could have said. Still, the blame had been apportioned, and it seemed as though Ginny had been found innocent.

So, day after day, Ron sat staring out of the window, and thinking about what had happened to him in the last month. He often suffered through short periods of catatonia, when he remembered that he had been in the same building as the most evil wizard alive. Ron did not even dare to use the wizard's name, so he would probably have had a heart attack had they come face to face.

Confrontations with Lord Voldemort were his best friend's territory. Harry had escaped from or vanquished the dark wizard four or five times now, in increasingly impressive ways.

Ron occasionally felt guilty that Harry had always had to fight these battles alone, although he wasn't sure that he would be particularly useful if he tried to help. The last time Ron had assisted Harry, there had been devastatingly embarrassing results. He had been hit with an Inebriation hex, after which he had been a burden to his friends, who were fighting for their lives. He still had the (practically self-inflicted) scars that had resulted from his incompetence, angry red welts in criss-cross patterns down his forearms.

A knock at his door stirred him from his melancholy thoughts. Ginny, no doubt. If one good thing had resulted from the fight at the Ministry of Magic, it was the refreshed relationship he had with his sister. They had spent most of their summer so far in each others company, talking more openly than they had done since before Ron went to Hogwarts.

'Come in,' he called, without turning his head.

The old door creaked as it swung open to admit his visitor.

'Thinking about Harry again?' Ginny asked.

'It isn't fair? I mean, why does everything always happen to him? What did he ever do?'

'You know, I remember a couple of years ago, you seemed pretty jealous about that.'

'A lot can change in a couple of years,' Ron stated plainly, fingers playing along the edge of the window frame to keep themselves busy.

He turned to study his sister. Her face was drawn, her eyes dull and slightly red. There was no sign of the vibrant girl he had grown up with.

'When was the last time you slept Gin?' he asked, voice thick with concern.

'Last night.'

There was no mistaking the defensive note in her words. Up until quite recently Ron would have let her get away with the obvious lie, but respecting Ginny's secrets suddenly seemed less important.

'I mean, for more than an hour. Proper sleep, without nightmares...'

'...well then you're _not _one to talk. I've heard the noises you make when you're in bed. You're not doing any better than me, so I don't think you should be patronising, ok?'

There was a moment of silence, the siblings standing at opposite ends of the room.

'I just...' Ron spluttered.

'I, I know...' Ginny managed to get out, 'but you need to look after yourself, not just me.'

'But, you shouldn't have been there. It's my fault that you're going through all of this.'

'Don't start that. We get enough of that from mum.'

Ginny paced over to Ron, and placed a hand onto his shoulder as he turned to look out of the window again.

'_I_ was there because _I_ wanted to be,' she continued. 'I accepted the chance of near-death experiences and nightmares, they come with the territory. I would do exactly the same thing again, and do you know why?'

'Because you care about Harry as much as I do,' Ron replied. It wasn't a difficult question.

'No, you idiot,' replied his sister, making him snap his head round so quickly that he cricked his neck.

'Huh?'

'Because I care about _all _of you. Harry and Hermione might be just like family to me, but you _are_ my family. Don't forget that.'

Ron was gob smacked, he didn't know what to say to that. He tentatively pulled his little sister into an awkward hug, and kissed her lightly on the top of the head.

'We'll get through this,' he said, 'and we'll be there to get Harry through the next thing, and the thing after that.'

'Yeah,' she replied, although she didn't sound convinced.

'Listen. We'll be fine, I want you to believe me. We _are_ going to survive this until You-Know-Who is gone.'

'Right,' said Ginny, a lot more confidently.

'Now, what's this about you thinking of Harry like family? Are you imagining wedding bells in the future..?'

Ginny blushed, broke free of the hug, and smacked Ron on the arm.

'I think of him like a brother of course. I have a boyfriend now, in case you'd forgotten.'

'Of course, _Dean Thomas_.' Ron said with a scowl. He _had_ forgotten: with everything that had happened, Ginny had hardly mentioned him.

'Why did you pull that face? I thought he was one of your best friends.'

'He is, but still...'

Ron thought for a second, trying not to put his point across too bluntly.

'...you're obsessed with Harry!'

'Am not.'

'You've said more about Harry in the last two days than you've ever said about Dean.'

'That's not fair! You know why that is. Harry nearly died last month.'

'Well ok, that's true, but you've even said more about... Seamus Finnegan than Dean this holiday.'

'Maybe... Maybe I want to keep my love life private from you,' Ginny said, although her face was turning red.

'Come to think of it, you _can't_ be keeping in touch with Dean, 'cos I have the only owl in this house that can deliver mail, and you've never borrowed him.'

Ginny's face was definitely redder than normal now. It was a Weasley curse, one that Ron knew only too well. Embarrassment was very obvious on their pale freckled faces.

'You aren't going out with him, are you!?' Ron said triumphantly. It wasn't a question.

Ginny covered her face with her hands, and made a noise that could only be classified as a squeak.

'Why would you make something like that up?'

That _was_ a question, but Ron already knew the answer to it.

'It _is_ Harry, isn't it?'

Ginny nodded quickly, eyes still covered, ears practically glowing. The effect was diminishing, and Ginny, who could often be quite intimidating despite her petite stature, seemed smaller than ever.

'You don't need to be so embarrassed. It isn't exactly a surprise... Ginny..?'

She was trembling now, her shoulders bobbing gently up and down, hands pressed firmly to her face. Ron's suspicions that she was crying were confirmed when a solitary teardrop escaped from between her fingers.

'What's wrong?'

'I'm so stupid...'

'Of course you're not. You're one of the brightest people I know. You make _me_ feel stupid most of the time.'

'I've made such a mess of this Harry thing. I just didn't want him to think I was...'

'What?'

'_...obsessed.'_

Ron noticed the repetition of the word he had used earlier, and mentally kicked himself for being so tactless. He placed a hand onto one of hers, and pulled it upwards. Ginny dropped the other hand to her side. She looked awful, her cheeks were streaked with tears, and her young face held an unnaturally old expression. It was more obvious than ever that she needed sleep, but Ron thought that he probably shouldn't tell her that.

'Harry knows that you're a good person. He'll come around eventually. I mean, have you ever told him how you feel?'

Ginny looked at him curiously through her tears.

'Are you trying to offer me relationship advice?' she spluttered, between sobs, clearly amused.

'Is there something funny about that?'

Ginny snorted out a laugh, which made her nose run, adding to the devastation. Ron was glad that he could provide a distraction, although he was slightly concerned about what his sister found so hilarious.

'No offence Ron,' she replied eventually, 'but you haven't been doing much better than me yourself.'

Ron winced at the cutting statement, but didn't retort. Ginny seemed to be pulling herself together, and _even he_ had enough tact not to insult her while she was feeling insecure.

'I think that we should go downstairs, get something to eat. I'm starving,' he said instead, as warmly as he could manage.

'You're definitely a man of habit Ron,' Ginny laughed. 'Just give me a sec. I need to go to the bathroom and clean my face.'

'Ok then sis. I'll see you down there,' he agreed, walking to the door, and hoping that his mother was going to be in a more forgiving mood today.

- HPHPHP -

Ron, as it turned out, was in luck, for that morning his mother had far more pressing things on her mind. When he entered the kitchen, it was to find her pacing back and forth across the tiled floor, reading from the Daily Prophet with a grim expression.

'Good morning Ron,' she said, without lifting her eyes from the article. 'I was beginning to think that you were avoiding me.'

His mother looked up and into his eyes, with a weary smile.

'I'm sorry,' she added, very sincerely.

Ron was flabbergasted. He had never heard her apologise before, or at least, not to him. He couldn't quite form a coherent sentence.

'S'okay,' he finally managed to get out.

'I've just been so worried. About all of you. Bill is in deep with the goblins, who could turn to Voldemort at any second. Charlie - off on his own recruiting for the Order - he's a target. Fred and George... well it's only a matter of time before Death Eaters attack Diagon Alley.'

She paused to take a deep breath.

'But you and Ginny, you were supposed to be safe. You were meant to be under Dumbledore's protection.'

'We would have gone straight to Dumbledore if he'd been there. Now that he's back, everything will be ok.'

'I wish I had your optimism, but You-Know-Who is just going to keep getting stronger. Dumbledore won't be able to fight forever.'

She threw the newspaper down onto the table and, a second before it unfolded, Ron glimpsed a headline on the page she had been reading.

_Trouble at the top - Ministry fears Espionage in the Minister's office._

The reason for her pacing became immediately apparent. Ron's estranged brother Percy worked for Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic. A spy in the office would put him in grave danger. His mother couldn't admit to being worried though. Her pride wouldn't allow her to acknowledge Percy, not whilst he stubbornly refused to return her owls.

It was up to Ron to say something. For the second time that day, he wished he knew a little more about handling delicate situations. If Hermione was here, what would she say? Ron tried to imagine, but nothing came to mind, and the pause was getting longer and longer...

'Percy's a bright wizard you know...' he blurted out.

His mother stared at him tensely for a few moments, clearly completely baffled, before her gaze shifted to the Daily Prophet resting on the kitchen table. Her shoulders slumped in realisation.

'I just mean...' Ron tried to justify his outburst, '...well, he'll be able to look after himself...'

There was another uncomfortable silence before Ron managed to finish.

'...if he needs to.'

Their eyes met, and there was an understanding between them. Ron knew that he didn't need to say any more, and that his mother was grateful, but also that she would always be worried for all of her children.

As his mother turned to the stove, and began to cast breakfast-making spells, Ron sat down at a chair and picked the Prophet up himself. He wasn't really a 'newspaper reader', but these days it paid to know what was going on, particularly if your best friend was The Boy Who Lived.

The front cover was taken up almost entirely by the faces of a man and woman in black robes, under the heading '_Death Eater Trials Begin_'. The woman was the more imposing of the two, with an obvious grace and beauty in her features, which were only slightly tempered by the deranged look in her piercing eyes. Her sleek black hair looked slightly unkempt, and her head vibrated in the picture frame with manic restlessness. The man in the frame next to her looked almost bored, his long blonde hair tied back neatly, his grey eyes idly drifting from Ron to his mother and back again with complete contempt.

The pictures were captioned, but Ron already knew both of the Death Eaters personally. Bellatrix Lestrange, the psychotic cousin of Harry's godfather, and Lucius Malfoy, father of Ron's least favourite Hogwarts student, Draco Malfoy.

He began to read the narrow column of text, which had been squashed up to the edge of the page to make room for the extra large photographs.

_At twelve o'clock yesterday afternoon, the consecutive trials of Death Eaters Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange began. Bellatrix Lestrange (formerly Bellatrix Black) escaped from the attack on the Ministry with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself, but was later apprehended as she attempted to breach the wards on the house of Madam Bones, head of the Magical Law Enforcement office. Lestrange has previously been convicted of torture, murder, treason against the Ministry and the use of mind control. Her trial was a mere formality, which concluded in the early hours of the evening. She is to be returned to Azkaban forthwith, to serve out the remainder of her sentence - the duration of which has been increased since her daring jailbreak. Supreme Mugwump of the Wizengamot, Albus Dumbledore, has decreed that Lestrange will not be granted a parole hearing 'until she is at least two hundred and fifty years old, or dead, whichever occurs first'._

_Lucius Malfoy, who was found within the Department of Mysteries during the Death Eater attack in June, had also previously been arrested nearly fifteen years ago, after You-Know-Who's apparent destruction. The Wizengamot later proclaimed that he was innocent, by virtue of diminished capacity. His insistence that he was under the effects of the Imperius curse, together with the testimony of numerous character witnesses, had not only enabled Mr. Malfoy to escape incarceration, but were instrumental in a significant compensation settlement from the MLE office for wrongful imprisonment. Family friends who were hoping for a repeat of these happenings however were in for a surprise._

_In a statement clearly designed to shock, Malfoy plead guilty to all of the charges levelled against him: one count of treason against the Ministry, sixteen murders, four rapes, eight instances of Imperius control and countless uses of the Cruciatus curse. He then confessed to a number of further murders, in which the Ministry had not implicated him. The bodies of some of the victims he listed have not yet been discovered, so the accuracy of his claims cannot be verified at this time, but the Wizengamot has decided to take each of these alleged incidents into account when reaching a verdict, which should be delivered later this afternoon._

_When asked to justify his actions Malfoy gave a gentle laugh and stated 'I act solely out of concern for the future of wizardkind. I do what must be done, and I fear that history will remember you all as weaklings, fools who oppose progress for the sake of sentimentality. The crimes which you convict me of will not be crimes for long. It is not a crime to murder an ant, because ants are below men, further down the food-chain. Well, mudbloods are further down the chain than wizards. They are glorified Muggle magicians, worse than the Muggles themselves, because they pretend to be something they are not. Change will come. I have been here at the beginning, and I will be a free man once the world is as it should be.'_

_Nothing beyond this point was audible to the reporter, due to the sheer volume of jeering and shouting in the courtroom, although a tamperproof transcript of Mr. Malfoy's testimony will be made available in due course._

_All other Death Eaters arrested at the Ministry of Magic this summer have plead innocent to the charges facing them. Their trials will begin next Thursday, with in-depth coverage exclusive to the Daily Prophet._

Ron put down the paper, disgustedly. He had, of course, already heard of Bellatrix Lestrange's recapture. Her picture had been on the front of the newspaper practically every day - female Death Eaters were in short supply, and the Daily Prophet editor seemed to find her far more interesting than the men she had aligned herself with. Most of the stories featuring Bellatrix were about 'the tragedy of a vibrant young witch led astray by promises of power'. Ron, having met the woman in question, knew that she was one of the most dangerous Death Eaters, and that she was also insane. He supposed that the 'innocent woman corrupted' angle sold more papers, although it seemed a little sexist, not to mention insensitive to Bellatrix's many victims.

The Bellatrix section today however had been factual and to the point. It was the coverage of Lucius Malfoy's trial that had disturbed Ron the most. He hadn't realised quite _how involved_ Lucius was in the torture. Malfoy had always seemed like the political type, the sort to help Voldemort by diverting funds and corrupting those in government, rather than the torturing type. Judging by the sheer number of charges pressed against him however, he must have enjoyed it. The murders would be the most highly punished, but Ron didn't find them quite so unsettling as the torture charges. The Cruciatus curse was horrendous to witness - Ron had been upset after seeing it performed on a spider. Only a truly sadistic bastard would be able to hold that curse on a human. And rape - that couldn't be part of Voldemort's grand scheme, so it must have been for personal pleasure. Somehow, it was the rape charges that made everything seem real. Crimes committed using magic seemed too clinical to be sinister. It was just a case of pointing a wand and saying a few words in Latin - which was exactly what Ron was being taught every day in school. Rape was physical and brutal.

Ron wondered what Draco thought about his fathers crimes. As a young child he had been raised by the psychopath, but since he had turned eleven, most of his time had been spent at Hogwarts. Maybe his soul hadn't been completely corrupted yet. Draco was a vindictive, spoiled, arrogant brat, but did he truly believe that torture and murder were alright, so long as they were for some 'greater good'? Ron supposed that the real test would come once they left school. Draco would have to make a choice - to become a Death Eater like his father or to run and hide.

Ron looked at the picture of Lucius again and frowned. He looked exactly like Draco would in forty years. There wasn't a single feature in Lucius' face that wasn't replicated in his son's. Even the expression was identical, and Draco had never done anything to make Ron believe that he was different on the inside either.

Ginny entered the room, looking slightly perkier now, and Ron quickly sat on the paper. There was no need for his sister to read articles about Death Eater violence, or about her brother's precarious position. He shook his head, to clear the Malfoys from his mind, and began to think about more important things. Like breakfast.

- HPHPHP -

It had been another uneventful day in a long string of uneventful days, thought Ron that evening as he stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed. There was no telling how long this summer would drag on for if it continued to rain. He wished that he was a seventeen year old. Then he would be allowed to perform magic out of school, which would solve all of his problems. He could Apparate to Harry's house, to find out how he was really feeling. The letters seemed fairly cheerful, which Ron knew for a fact was just Harry's way of putting a brave face on the situation.

He could go and see Hermione, although that would no doubt frustrate him even more than the boredom. It wasn't that Ron didn't like Hermione, far from it, it was just that life was always a lot more complicated when she was involved. There had always been a tension between them, since the first day they had met. After the Triwizard Ball it had seemed that each had discovered feelings for the other, but still, a year and a half later, no relationship had materialised. Now other feelings clouded Ron's mind, and made the issue a lot less clear. He was growing up, and that involved certain changes. Whilst Ron began to mature into an adult, his feelings for Hermione didn't seem to be developing in the same way, and although she was blossoming into a beautiful woman, he was stuck with some kind of platonic eleven year old emotion. That was deeply disturbing to Ron, because with his teenage hormones, he could be excited by something as childishly suggestive as someone eating a banana.

Maybe, he thought, it was too late for them to make it work. Maybe girls started to lose their sex appeal once you had been friends with them for so many years. Maybe he was overthinking the whole thing, and it would resolve itself when they finally got together. Maybe...

Ron fell asleep thinking about Hermione, for the first time in almost a year, but his dreams soon drifted to the war, and became nightmares.

- HPHPHP -

Not for the first time, Ron managed barely any sleep that night. The waking world, although dull, was usually far more peaceful than his subconscious. He repeatedly woke, only to discover that the sun still hadn't risen. Each time, it took him longer to drift back to sleep.

The boring day that Ron had expected was not to be, because when Ron finally awoke at a sensible hour, it was to discover another pair of eyes locked with his own.


	2. Mary

**Chapter Two: Mary**

Ron didn't scream, but it was a close thing. The girl on his bed looked a little younger than him: about fourteen, or maybe fifteen. How she had come to be there Ron had no idea. He didn't recognise her face, and there was no obvious family resemblance to anybody that he knew. She was lying back casually on top of the covers, still dressed in faded jeans, and a pale yellow T-shirt. Her mousy-brown hair was long and thick, and it lay around her head on the pillow like an extravagant crown. Her eyes were a deep brown, and they stared into Ron's, completely unblinking. It was the mouth which was the most alarming though, given that it was fixed in a demented grin.

'You can see me!' the mysterious figure shouted, so loudly that Ron expected his entire family to come running.

'Of course I can see you,' he hissed back, mind screaming at him incoherently. 'You're on my fucking bed!'

His observation didn't seem to faze the girl.

'I knew you'd be able to see me!' she repeated, again not troubling to keep her voice down.

'Are you _insane_?' Ron spat out, clasping a hand tightly about her mouth. Unfortunately, that movement only served to remind him how little he was wearing. He released her quickly and shuffled away from her under the covers.

'Who are you?' he asked, 'and what are you playing at, Apparating into my bed when I'm asleep?'

'What's Apparating?'

'What do you mean? Apparition... The only way you could have gotten up here without being seen.'

Now Ron thought about it, the Burrow was supposed to have anti-Apparition wards on it. If she had bypassed them, then she was a far more dangerous witch than he was giving her credit for.

'I've never even heard of Apparition' she told him.

'What are you talking about? How does your Dad get to work?'

He grew more confused with every word this girl said, which was at least causing him to forget his embarrassment slightly.

'He drives a car, like a normal person!' her smile faltered slightly. 'At least, I think he does, I don't really remember...'

Comprehension dawned on Ron jarringly. This was a Muggle! That was why the wards hadn't recognised her, why she had been able to just wander in.

'And do you just walk into people's houses and climb into their beds at random?'

'No!' she protested.

'Well, sorry if I offended you,' he said, voice dripping with sarcasm, 'but the situation seems to suggest something different.'

'You'd be taking drastic measures if you'd had the same week as me.'

The girl seemed to have lost some of her insane energy now, and although Ron still wasn't anything like comfortable with her being there, she didn't seem particularly dangerous. She also seemed to be looking for some reassurance, something that Ron was getting used to giving.

'Believe me, I know about having a hellish life, so why don't you try me...'

'At least people can see you.'

'Huh?'

That wasn't what Ron had been expecting. He didn't think he could have been more wrong-footed.

'I'm invisible.'

'That's crazy! I'm looking right at you.'

'You're the first person to notice me in a week.'

'There's no reason for me to be able to see you, if nobody else can...'

That wasn't entirely true actually. Presumably, if this girl was a Muggle, she would only have been trying to contact other Muggles. So what could wizards see, that Muggles couldn't? He was hit by a flash of inspiration.

'...unless you're a ghost!'

'Typical. The only guy in the world that can see me turns out to be a spirit-world freak. There's no such thing as ghosts. This has a scientific explanation.'

'What does scientific mean?'

The girl let out a guttural moan, and swung her legs off the bed. As she stood, Ron noticed that she hadn't even removed her trainers to get onto the bed. She was still looking irritated, and when she spoke, the voice was despairing.

'I was really excited when you woke up and saw me, but I didn't think that you looked like an idiot.'

'No wait!' he shouted defensively. 'It's not what you think. I'm a wizard!'

The girl looked thoroughly disenchanted now, and more than a little annoyed.

'Go on then. Do a magic trick,' she taunted harshly.

'I can't. I'm not seventeen yet. It's illegal.'

She sighed, turned and walked towards the door, but it swung open before she reached it. Ron nearly died when he realised that it was his mother standing in the doorway.

'Mum... I can explain...'

'Are you alright Ron? I heard you shouting. Were you having another nightmare?'

His mother was apparently completely ignorant of the girl standing between them.

'What? Oh... er, yes, but I'm ok now.'

'Do you want me to make you a nice cup of tea?' she said, taking a pace forwards.

Ron forced himself to speak as normally as he could manage.

'That... that sounds lovely. Thanks.'

'Are you sure that you're ok? You sound upset.'

Without warning, she walked to Ron's bedside, directly _through_ the girl. Ron winced loudly. The girl seemed unsurprised, as though this wasn't the first time it had happened.

'What's wrong?' his mother asked, kneeling and resting a hand on his forehead. 'You feel warm, and you're acting very oddly.'

'Nothing,' Ron tried to convince her, squirming all the while. The heat was mainly down to embarrassment, and fear of the girl's discovery (although that seemed less likely now).

His mum seemed to sense the embarrassment in the air, and although she couldn't have known its cause, she had raised enough boys to learn when to drop something. Instead of pressing her case, she turned and cast a spell at the window. The curtains flew open quickly, releasing a cloud of dust as they snapped to a halt. The mysterious girl made an odd noise - part wail, part cough - but it seemed that people's ignorance of her extended to sound, because Ron's mum didn't even pause.

'I'll just... go make that cup of tea then...' she said, uncomfortably excusing herself from the room.

There were a few moments of silence, before either of them spoke.

'So that's your mum?'

'Yeah...'

'She seems nice.'

'I suppose.'

'How did she do that thing with the curtains?'

'Magic.'

'Don't be glib.'

'What? I'm serious! I really am a wizard, my mum really is a witch, my entire family are for that matter... well, except for one uncle...'

'I. Don't. Believe. In. Magic!' she said, spitting each word out slowly, as though talking to a child.

'Look, you can be as sceptical as you like, but seeing as how you're the one that's invisible, how about giving me the benefit of the doubt for now. Maybe instead of telling me what you don't believe in, you could tell me something useful, like your name perhaps?'

'It's Mary Quinn.'

'And what happened last week right before you disappeared?'

Mary sighed exasperatedly, and ran a hand through her hair.

'I don't remember anything before last Thursday. I just remember waking up in the middle of a street, and everybody ignoring me. Then someone walked through me and I panicked. I made a run for it.'

'You woke up in the middle of a street? Maybe you were...'

'...I was not run over by a car! I am not dead!'

'How do you know?'

'Because, if I was dead, I wouldn't be hanging around chatting to you, would I?'

'I suppose that _technically_ Muggles shouldn't be able to become ghosts, and I have to admit that you don't exactly look like one...' he paused. 'But still, it's the only explanation that really makes sense. Only witches and wizards can see ghosts. People can walk right through them. Ghosts can make themselves invisible to certain people. That all fits your story...'

'I've probably still got the handprint on my face from when you tried to gag me. You can touch me - how does that fit in with your theory?'

She was right of course. Ron inwardly cursed. This didn't make any kind of sense. What possibilities were left? Some kind of elaborate plot? Maybe a _really_ skilled witch could perform the spells required to be invisible and incorporeal to everybody except Ron, but a fourteen year old would have her wand broken for even attempting it. Even if she had evaded capture by the Ministry, the Burrow wards ought to have detected her. And why bother? What could this girl possibly gain by breaking into Ron's house in such a state, claiming amnesia? Well, she could act as a spy, though surely it would be easier to watch the Weasleys if _nobody_ could see her.

'Ok, ok! I'll accept that you're alive...'

'...good...'

'...but I've never heard of anything like this before. True, wizards have loads of ways to become invisible. My friend has this cloak...' Ron trailed off as he decided not to discuss Harry, just on the off chance that Mary _was_ a spy.

'Anyway,' he continued awkwardly, 'the invisibility isn't the scary thing. It's the incorporeal thing that worries me.'

'It worries _you_?! How do you think I feel? I haven't eaten in a week, and I'm not even hungry. I don't get hot or cold. I don't need to sleep...'

Ron decided not to mention how closely this fitted the description of a ghost.

'Maybe you've been cursed. Did you ever do anything to offend somebody in a long cloak and a pointy hat?'

'I don't remember!'

'Oh yeah. Sorry.'

He thought about it for a moment.

'So why are you here? I mean, how did you find me? And why did you seem so sure that I would be able to see you?'

'I don't really know. I've been wandering for days, but I've always been heading in this direction. I saw your house, and I just...'

She paused, vaguely trance-like.

'I just thought that this was where I ought to be. It was like I was hypnotised or something. I walked straight through the kitchen, up the stairs, past all of the other rooms, and in here.'

Ron was a little disturbed by that. It sounded almost Imperius like. If this girl was being mind-controlled, then she could be a major threat to the family. He pushed back the doubts. Magical compulsion could be the result of a lot of different things, most of which were fairly harmless. The girl was still talking.

'You looked different to me. I don't know why, but you looked more... real than everybody else. I had to know, so I put my hand on your shoulder while you were asleep. You were the first person I could touch since I woke up in the middle of that road.'

'...and then you climbed into bed with me?'

The girl finally blushed. Ron was pleased to see it - apparently she did have human reactions after all.

'Yeah, sorry. I don't know why I did that. It's been an odd week.'

'No kidding!'

She had a point. If anyone had the right to behave unusually, then this girl did. In fact, Ron was surprised at how in control she seemed. Aside from the weird jubilation she'd shown after Ron had woken, and the irritation when he had mentioned magic, she was acting remarkably sanely.

'I reckon I can help you. We get some important people coming through here. I'll bet you a million Galleons that Dumbledore can see you. He'll have you solid again in no time.'

'Dumbledore?'

'Complete genius. He's as mad as a sack full of Jarveys, but he's probably the most powerful wizard in the world.'

'Probably?'

'Well, it's either him or... You-Know-Who...'

'I don't...'

'Don't what?'

'Know who...'

Ron suddenly realised what she meant, and promptly went white.

'Of course. You wouldn't...'

'Who is...'

'It doesn't matter. He'd be more likely to kill you than cure you. He might even be the person that did this to you...'

Mary looked _really_ interested now.

'Why do you say that?'

'When something bad happens, he's always my first guess.'

'Who though? I mean... What's he called?'

'I can't say it.'

'Why? Is it really hard to pronounce or something?'

Ron felt strangely embarrassed to admit the real reason to a young girl. It was alright to be afraid of Voldemort's name amongst other wizards, because everybody was, but this girl wouldn't understand. She would just think that he was a coward. He tried to justify himself.

'Nobody ever says his name. They're all terrified. I guess it's a bit silly really, but only the really powerful wizards dare to talk about him.'

'Like God?'

'What?'

'Well there's some religions, where you aren't allowed to say the name of God, because otherwise... I don't know... he's supposed to hit you with a bolt of lightning or something.'

'Well, yeah. Except that obviously _You-Know-Who_ isn't that powerful. He's still human, and I'm pretty sure he has to be in the same room as you if he wants to kill you.'

Mary let that sink in, before she spoke.

'I still want to know what he's called.'

'Fine. I have a piece of parchment in my desk. Turn around, will you?'

Mary did, and Ron threw himself out of bed and across the room, a cool breeze biting into his exposed thighs. After grabbing the parchment, and a thick pencil, he raced back to the comfortable warmth of his blankets.

He quickly scribbled the name down, and held it up for Mary to see.

'Lord Voldemort?' she scoffed. 'What kind of name is that?'

Ron was clearly getting used to hearing Voldemort's name spoken aloud, because he barely shivered at the outburst.

'It isn't his real name actually. He was born as Tom Riddle.'

Ron shook the parchment.

'He made this name up, 'cos he didn't like being named after his dad.'

'Considering that you can't even say this guy's name, you seem to know a lot of random facts about him...'

'As I said, I have a hellish life...'

'Want to talk about it?'

Ron was surprised to realise that he did actually feel like talking. True, the invisibility was still an unresolved issue, but Ron had the strangest feeling that he could trust Mary. He decided to go with his gut instincts. If she was telling the truth, then it wasn't as if she could spill his secrets, and if she was evil... well, she was a damn good actress.

He discussed his life as a wizard, before school, which Mary seemed to be very interested by, but she became hooked on Ron's words once he had reached the first year of Hogwarts. About half way through the story, when Ron had spoken about Quidditch, Mary had looked at him suddenly, as though he had gone too far. Ron silenced her quickly, by leaning over and sliding out his Cleansweep from underneath the bed.

There were no interruptions after that, until Ron reached the Triwizard Tournament, after which Mary seemed unable to digest any more.

'Am I supposed to believe all of this?'

'You can believe what you like...'

'I mean, I could sort of accept that maybe you _are_ a wizard, even though that sounds beyond crazy, but I can't believe that you've done all of these things. You'd be a legend, a hero...'

Ron looked at her as though she was mad.

'As I said, Harry did most of that stuff, and he really is a legend. He's been famous since his parents died, and he hates it. In some ways, I'm guess that I'm better off in his shadow.'

'But all that stuff. That suicidal move in the chess game, you'd have been younger than me...'

'I was, and it hurt, but I'd do it again in a second.'

Mary stared into Ron's eyes, for a very long time, trying to decide whether he was a genuine hero, or a Lockhart-style impostor. She suddenly broke his gaze, seemingly convinced.

'Why?' she asked simply.

'You'll understand when you meet Harry,' Ron replied. 'Now do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?'

- HPHPHP -

By the time Ron's mum had returned with the tea, Mary was almost up to speed on everything important that had happened to Ron at school. He had been very brief when talking about lessons, mainly because he had thought that the lessons were boring. He had also figured that she might appreciate seeing magic performed far more if she hadn't been told about the spells beforehand. Mary hadn't complained about the missing details. Once the story had gotten going, it was definitely interesting enough without them.

As his mum laid the tea tray on his bedside table, Ron wondered how he should explain the situation. His account definitely wouldn't contain any mention of the 'waking up next to a girl' incident.

'Are you alright now Ron?' his mother quizzed.

'Sort of,' he confessed. 'But there's something I need to talk to you about.'

'Well, I did think that something odd was going on...'

Ron decided to just get it out of the way, as fast as possible. If he sounded like an idiot, well, he was used to that. At least once he'd done it, it would be out of the way, and he wouldn't have to explain it again.

- HPHPHP -

Twenty minutes later, Ron had just finished going through the tale for the seventh or eighth time. The first time, his mother had thought it was some kind of abstract joke. The second time through, she had seemed worried about his sanity. By the fourth or fifth time, she had finally accepted that there might be somebody else in the room and had tried to communicate, although the tone she had used was patronising, and had earned unseen glares from Mary.

The fifth or sixth repetition of the story had been for Ron's father, although Ginny had also been present. Whilst Ginny looked sceptical, Ron's dad had immediately become defensive, first testing the wards on the Burrow, before running off to track down Dumbledore.

He had returned instead with Professor McGonagall, who had explained that Dumbledore was extremely busy. The sixth or seventh telling of the tale had been for her benefit. Immediately afterwards, she had run out of the room, and quickly returned with the supposedly busy Headmaster. Ron was deeply disappointed that the old man could clearly not see Mary at all, and was even more disappointed when he asked Ron to repeat the story one further time.

Throughout the entire thing, Mary had sat, legs crossed, on the end of Ron's bed, watching the whole debacle amusedly, occasionally prompting him when he forgot something. It seemed that, having listened to Ron's exciting life story, she believed he was capable of sorting out her problem.

Having listened to the bizarre tale, Dumbledore sat down lightly onto the bed, carefully avoiding the place where Ron had indicated that Mary was sitting.

'How curious!' he said happily, drawing his wand.

Mary sat up a little straighter.

'I wonder if you could assist me Ron?' Dumbledore added.

He waved the wand quickly in Ron's direction. Ron blinked as the jet of light shot towards him, but once the light had faded he felt nothing different. Then he realised that Dumbledore had magically dressed him. Even considering who it was, Ron was impressed. Conjuration was difficult enough as it was, but to clothe somebody who was lying under a blanket... Dumbledore was so cool.

He climbed out of bed, and reassessed his opinion.

The outfit that he was wearing was an exact match for Dumbledore's, which would have been fairly standard wizarding robes, if they hadn't been made of purple velvet. Dumbledore was so powerful that he could pull off purple clothes, but on Ron they just looked stupid. A round of energetic laughter followed his emergence from the bed, and Mary (who was unused to wizarding robes) continued laughing for the longest.

There was an odd moment, where everybody else thought that the room was silent, but Ron could see and hear Mary's manic laughter. Luckily the moment passed. Mary quickly sobered up, when she realised that Dumbledore was going to do some magic - maybe something to cure her.

'What do you want me to do?' Ron asked, anxiously. He couldn't exactly use his wand in the holidays.

'Just stand behind Mary, so that I can see where she is, and tell me what exactly what she says.'

Ron beckoned Mary to her feet.

'Wait!' said Mary, all of a sudden looking insanely worried. 'What the fuck is he going to do? I don't want him doing all sorts of crazy shit to me!'

'She says that she's... er... a bit nervous...' Ron translated, '...and she wants to know what you're going to do.'

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.

'If she said that, then she's braver than I would have guessed. I'm just going to cast a simple diagnosis spell. It's the variation that I usually use on ghosts.'

Ron stepped behind Mary, and before there was a chance for Mary to move, or even protest, Dumbledore cast the charm. There was no beam of light this time, although the air crackled with electricity as the spell slipped through the air. It passed right through Mary, and collided with Ron.

Dumbledore didn't seem upset. In fact, he smiled again.

'Apparently, Ron's new friend is a sixteen year-old redheaded boy.'

Everybody in the room looked at Dumbledore exasperatedly, especially McGonagall, whose expression suggested that she was more than used to this unconcerned attitude. Dumbledore must have noticed the tension in the room. He chose not to react to it, although the next words he spoke _were_ less daft.

'I suspected that this might happen. I perceive a great many things - more than most people, yet I don't detect the slightest hint of unusual magic in this room.'

'Are you saying that I made this up?' Ron began, angrily.

'No, no, no... quite the contrary. I have known you for a long while. I personally awarded you a special award for services to Hogwarts. I do not believe that you are capable of such a childish journey into fantasy.'

'Then,' Ron replied more calmly, blushing at the praise, 'what are you saying?'

'I am saying that _you_ perceive this situation better than I do.'

'What!?'

'If there truly _is_ somebody else in this room, which I am quite happy to believe, then you are the only person who can see them. More astoundingly, you can touch this person, whereas I cannot even affect her with magic.'

'But, surely that can't be anything to do with me? It must be because somebody else _wants_ me to see her. Or maybe she only exists inside my head - I might be going mad...'

'I don't think we need to worry about that just yet...' Dumbledore interrupted, still annoyingly chirpy. 'There is a test that we can do.'

'What is it?' Ron asked.

'I want _you _to cast the diagnosis spell.'

'I'll be arrested if I do that...'

'I'll divert the Ministry's detection spells, just this once, so that you can try. The spell is fairly straightforward, and given your experiences so far today, I don't think that you'll need to use the ghost variation.'

Dumbledore demonstrated the wand movement of the spell, and Ron memorised it as best he could. The audience was fairly daunting. Dumbledore, McGonagall, both of his parents and his sister - not to mention the charm's target - this Mary girl.

He made a few practise swings at the wall, until he had gotten the hang of it. Mary looked even more nervous now, but considering what had happened last time, Ron wasn't particularly sure why. If Dumbledore couldn't do this, then what chance did he have?

He cast the spell unconvinced, but the second it collided with Mary's chest, Ron's head filled with random facts. It was very odd, thought Ron, to suddenly know the exact height in inches, or the exact shoe size, of a girl you had only just met. He tried to rearrange his head, so that he could work out what was the most useful information. There was nothing emotionally revealing there at all, nothing about who Mary's family were, or where she lived. The scan hadn't even confirmed Mary's name. What it had revealed though, was an extensive physical knowledge of her body, inside and out. Ron turned bright red, as he realised that, if he had a single artistic bone in his body, he could have drawn a perfectly accurate portrait of Mary completely naked.

Ginny and Mary didn't realise what the embarrassment was about, but the adults looked sympathetic to Ron's awkwardness, if perhaps a little amused.

'I need you to concentrate, Ron,' began Dumbledore, '...if you can.'

Ron's father sniggered, and Professor McGonagall cast him a look out of the corner of her disapproving eye.

'Firstly, can you confirm that Mary is a Muggle?'

'Yes,' Ron said, quickly.

'And can you tell me anything about her physical condition?'

There was another, louder snigger from Ron's dad, and Ron was appalled to hear his mother choke back a suspiciously snorting cough.

What was he supposed to say? Mary was a slim, attractive girl with nice skin, and pert juicy... no, that wouldn't do. He tried to concentrate again. Dumbledore was an expert Legilimens, and the images inside Ron's head were not the sort that he wanted to broadcast.

'Er... she's fifteen years and seventy two days old. Other than that, I'm not getting a lot of information. Nothing about why she's invisible anyway.'

A third snigger. Ron couldn't believe how childish his parents were being. He felt as if his cheeks were going to explode. His ears were burning, and there were butterflies jumping around in his stomach.

Madam Pomfrey cast this spell all the time - how did she keep a straight face? In fact, Ron realised with a start, Madam Pomfrey had cast the spell on _him_ before now. Why was this spell even _legal_?

'What are they all laughing about?' Mary asked, concerned. 'What did the spell show you?'

'Er.. Mary wants to know why you're all laughing at me...' Ron told the room, praying for a little help.

'I'm sorry Mary,' Dumbledore said softly. 'The spell _was_ completely necessary and it couldn't have been performed by anybody else, but it has given Ron an unfortunately revealing knowledge of your body.'

'What does he mean?' Mary asked, eyes widening. She had obviously understood correctly, but she wanted somebody to say it explicitly.

'I know what you're thinking, and I'm afraid you're right,' Ron confirmed as Mary went pale, 'but I had no idea that it would happen. Dumbledore didn't explain the consequences first.'

Mrs. Weasley looked at her son sternly, and hissed under her breath.

'_Professor_ Dumbledore...'

She clearly couldn't believe how disrespectful Ron was being in front of the most powerful wizard alive.

'Its quite alright,' Dumbledore said calmly. 'I understand his annoyance. I have put the pair of them into a very awkward position. The only boy who can see Mary is now embarrassed to be around her.'

'So what are we going to do?' Ron asked desperately, hoping that his Headmaster had a plan.

The old man did not disappoint him.

'Simple. I am going to watch all of your memories from today, and then I am going to remove the embarrassing pictures from your mind.'

Dumbledore tapped his wand against Ron's temple, and withdrew a long silvery string of memory. He lifted the wand high into the air, and sucked the dangling thread into his mouth, slurping it down like a child with a strand of spaghetti.

For a moment, Dumbledore just sat there, head slightly angled, eyes not focussing on anything in particular. Then suddenly, he snapped out of the trance...

'Very interesting,' he stated, sounding almost impressed. 'I hadn't realised just _how normal_ Mary appears to you. She might as well just be another corporeal human being...'

'So what does it mean?' Ron asked, hoping for some answers.

'I don't have any _convincing_ theories.'

'But you have a hunch, right?'

'I have a few ideas, which would definitely merit investigation, but they all seem equally unlikely at the moment...'

'Want to share them?' Ron asked impetuously.

His mother tutted again, obviously appalled at his flippant rudeness. Dumbledore seemed as unconcerned as ever.

'Well, I'd rather not share my thoughts yet. Some of them are a little extreme. I wouldn't want you to worry...'

_A little late for that_, thought Ron sarcastically, but he didn't say it aloud, for fear of being assaulted by his mum.

'So what do I do?' Mary asked Ron, who relayed the question.

'Well, unless Molly has any objections, I suggest that Mary stays here until the school term starts. I'm afraid I can't solve this problem yet. I'll need to consult some old acquaintances, which may take some time. In the meantime...'

But whatever Dumbledore's advice would have been, Ron didn't find out. The conversation was interrupted by a piercing wail. The Headteacher fished a long golden chain out of his robes, and studied the pendant that was attached to it. It looked like some kind of crystal, and it was emitting a blood red glow which flooded the room.

'The wards have fallen at Privet Drive!' he yelled, over the shrieking sound. 'We need to go...'

'It's Harry!' Ron realised. 'Can I come?'

'Of course not,' his mother snapped, but seeing Ron's determined expression, she softened and tried to make him see reason. 'You're too young to use magic.'

'Another time,' Dumbledore promised, after silencing the pendant. 'You will have many more opportunities to help Harry, before the war is over.'

The old man turned to the adults.

'I have lowered the Apparition wards. Go to Privet Drive and get into your positions. I'll be right behind you.'

McGonagall and Ron's parents dissolved into the air with three quick pops.

'I have to go Ron, but trust me, I will look out for Harry. You need to take care of things here,' Dumbledore addressed the redhead, before turning to look at the foot of his bed. 'Mary, tell Ron everything you can remember about the last week. Even seemingly inconsequential things might be vital...'

Dumbledore stepped back, but just before he vanished he cast a quick charm at Ron.

'Obliviate!'

Instantly, all of the mildly pornographic images in Ron's head disappeared. He could still remember that he had seen Mary naked, he just couldn't remember what she had looked like. It was a relief. Now he could think clearly.

Dumbledore smiled at the boy's obvious gratitude, and dematerialised, raising the wards behind him.


	3. The Tone That's In Your Laugh

**Chapter Three: The Tone That's In Your Laugh**

It was twenty tense minutes of waiting before the rescue party returned. An unfamiliar elderly lady was the first to tumble out of the fireplace. Ron and Ginny raised wands confrontationally, but the woman batted them aside.

'Typical. No respect for your elders. A wand in the face is the last thing I need after I've been through that dratted Floo network.'

'Who are you?' Ron demanded, raising his wand again, quite prepared to cast a hex.

'My name is Mrs. Figg. Now lower that, or you'll regret it...'

'_Arabella_ Figg?' Ginny asked. 'The squib from Harry's street?'

'Yes,' the woman confirmed impatiently. 'The others are right behind me...'

Sure enough, a flurry of activity was beginning in the fireplace. Dumbledore strode out, followed by Ron's parents. Ron lowered his wand, as another familiar figure tumbled forwards. Harry _just_ managed to remain on his feet, but the person who followed him was not so lucky. A tall, tanned boy stumbled out of the fireplace, staggered forwards, and collapsed onto Ron, who failed to hold him up. The pair ended up in a pile on the floor.

'Sorry,' the boy mumbled, brushing his thick brown fringe away from his dark eyes. 'Bit of a rough landing...'

Ron looked up at Ginny and Mary's smirking faces, and then looked back at the stranger. He was smiling apologetically, and after he had scrambled up, he offered a hand in assistance.

'Ron, Ginny, this is Matthew Foster.' Harry offered as an introduction. 'Matthew, Ron and Ginny Weasley.'

The teenagers exchanged greetings.

'Matthew visited Harry's house this morning,' Dumbledore explained, 'and introduced himself as a new neighbour. Since he came bearing gifts, Petunia invited him in for a cup of tea. However, the moment Matthew caught sight of Harry, he dropped a magical orb, which shattered, bringing down my protective wards.'

Ron tensed up, and clutched his wand more tightly, wondering why everybody was acting in such a friendly manner to a Death Eater.

'Relax,' Harry said, to calm Ron's nerves. 'He's a Muggle. He was under the Imperius curse. Death Eaters can't get into my house...'

'They _couldn't_ in the past,' Dumbledore corrected. 'I'm afraid that that is no longer the case.'

'So... the Imperius has been lifted now?' Ron quizzed Dumbledore.

'It lifted automatically, once the wards had been brought down.'

'Did the Death Eaters attack?' Ginny asked, looking suddenly quite pale, but intrigued none-the-less.

'Thankfully, my back up protections were strong enough to keep the Death Eaters at bay, until we had safely removed Harry,' Dumbledore said.

The elderly wizard patted his chest, where the pendant hung. 'My early warning system worked far better than I could have hoped for. When Voldemort does break through the final shield, there won't be anybody left to find.'

'What about Harry's relatives?' Ron's sister continued.

'They were being rather uncooperative, so Minerva took them to Grimmauld Place. The last thing Harry needs at the moment is further complications.'

'Speaking of complications,' Mrs. Figg interrupted. 'Shouldn't you be heading back to Privet Drive? There are lots of innocent Muggles at risk, not to mention my cats.'

'You're quite right.' Dumbledore agreed. 'We can't hang around. I contacted the ministry, but Aurors will be ill equipped to deal with Voldemort. We'd better get back... Molly...'

'Don't worry. I've got things under control here.'

Ron's mother turned to address her husband.

'Are you going with Dumbledore, Arthur?'

'Yes, I think I should. The Ministry can never spare enough Aurors these days.'

'Be careful dear.'

'I will.'

The pair kissed, then Dumbledore lowered the wards as before and the men disappeared into the ether.

'I should probably go too, and make an appearance at Grimmauld Place,' Mrs. Figg declared, thoughtfully. 'The Dursley's will be getting agitated. They might respond better to a familiar face.'

'I doubt it,' Harry responded, dubious. 'Now that they know you're one of us, they'll probably try to attack you.'

'That as may be, but I still need to try. I'd rather do something than sit here feeling sorry for myself...'

The old lady drew in breath and then released it, preparing herself for this unpleasant task. Then she turned, threw some Floo powder into the fire, yelled 'Number Twelve Grimmauld Place' and vanished into the smoke.

Ginny turned to study Matthew, and the rest of the room followed suit. He was almost as tall as Ron, and slender but not quite skinny. His straight brown hair was long, almost down to his shoulders, except for the heavy fringe. Ron estimated that the boy was a little older than him, maybe seventeen.

'How come you're so calm about all of this, if you're a Muggle?' Ginny asked confrontationally, her hand gesture encompassing the room full of magical objects.

'He wasn't,' replied Harry, intercepting the question. 'He was really freaked out when the Imperius charm broke. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten into our house. Luckily it only took Professor Dumbledore about ten seconds to Apparate in and hit him with a calming spell.'

'I do feel very calm,' agreed Matthew happily.

'It won't last,' said Ron's mum. 'We need to explain some things, before the charm's worn off. The better you understand this, the easier it will be.'

'Oh, right.' Matthew's smile already looked slightly less confident. 'Well, explain away.'

Ron's mother chose that moment to put him on the spot.

'Well, I know that Ron's already given this explanation once today, so maybe he can start. I'll go and put a kettle on. I think that a pot of tea might help us.'

'Why have you already given this explanation once today?' Harry asked, as Ron's mum bustled off towards the kitchen.

'Oh, sorry Harry! I forgot.'

He smiled and made the introductions.

'Harry, this is Mary Quinn. Mary, this is Harry.'

It was highly entertaining to watch his friend's reaction. Maybe having an invisible friend could be fun.

'Did you just introduce me to a wall?'

'No, she's a girl, she's just invisible... Except that I can see her...'

'Er...'

'Dumbledore believes me.'

'He does?'

'Yeah. In fact, Dumbledore's watched my memories, so he's actually seen her.'

'Oh. Well, okay then. Hi Mary.'

Harry flashed his most charming smile in completely the wrong direction. Ron smirked.

'And if we're done with introductions...' Ron said, with another smile. 'Matthew, magic is real. It might sound insane, although you've probably seen enough in the last ten minutes to convince you that I'm telling the truth.'

'No shit...' Matthew agreed.

Ron turned instinctively to the kitchen, to make sure that his mother hadn't heard the swearing. She hadn't, luckily for Matthew, so he continued with the finer details of his explanation.

'I'm a wizard, my mum and sister here are witches. Harry... Well he's practically the mascot of the wizarding world.'

'Ron!' snapped Harry, annoyed, but Ron ignored him.

'As for Invisible Mary; she's non-magical like you. Us witches and wizards call you Muggles.'

Matthew rolled the word around in his mouth a few times.

'I don't like it,' he finally decided. 'It sounds patronising. Like we're cute and adorable and a bit dim.'

'It's only a word!' laughed Ginny.

Matthew scowled.

'If Mary isn't magical', asked Harry, 'then how is she invisible?'

'We haven't got the faintest idea. She has no memories at all about her real life.'

'I only know my name because it's engraved on the back of my watch,' she said sadly to herself.

Ron relayed what she had said to the rest of the room, to try and make Mary feel more included. It must be difficult, what she was going through, to be visible and audible to only one person. And then Ron realised; he was that one person, which was an awesome responsibility. It was as though she was foreign, but he was the only person in the entire world who could speak her language. Except, it was even worse than that. She couldn't gesture at people to get her message across, nor could she move things. Without him, she basically didn't exist. Rather selfishly, Ron wondered just how much hassle this girl was going to cause for him. His earlier thought, that she might be fun to have as a friend, seemed very naïve.

In the time that it had taken for Ron to have this revelation, Ginny had begun to talk about all of Harry's exploits at school. She seemed to praise Harry's courage, or his magical talent, or his brains, in every other sentence. Ron thought that she could have hidden her affection better, although Harry seemed generally oblivious, if slightly embarrassed.

There were fairly significant gaps in Ginny's tales. Whenever Hermione or Ron had made a contribution to the story, Ginny seemed to think it was unimportant, and skipped ahead. Harry had to keep interrupting, to fill in the gaps. Ron wasn't offended, he doubted she even knew she was doing it. She had just become so enamoured with Harry that, to her, the other bits seemed dull by comparison.

Having already gone through these stories once today with Mary, Ron wasn't all that bothered about hearing them again. He really fancied a moment to himself, to consider the implications of his new invisible friend, but he couldn't exactly _ask_ Mary to stay away from him, even for a few minutes. That would be cruel.

'I'm just going to get some fresh air,' he said, the next time Ginny stopped for breath. 'Mary, you can come with me if you like, or you can stay and listen to the stories again. I'm sure that Ginny tells them better than me.'

Whether she had taken the hint, or whether she actually wanted to hear the stories again, Ron didn't know, but Mary declined his invitation politely.

'It's okay Ron. I think I'll stay here and find out more about Harry. You said I'd understand why you were ready to give your life for this boy once I'd got to know him.'

'True.'

'Well with an introduction like that, I think Harry is somebody I'll want to know.'

'Good.' He turned to the corporeal people in the room. 'Mary is staying with you lot. She's in the wicker chair, so please try not to sit on her.'

- HPHPHP -

Ron sat alone on the porch for about an hour before he was lifted from his introspection. The rain was still beating down heavily, so venturing further afield was not an option. The strumming of the raindrops was so loud that Ron didn't realise he had company until a hand was actually placed on his shoulder. He jumped slightly.

'Hi.'

It was Matthew, bearing a cup of tea.

'Your mum said I should give you some time before I came out here; something about the _Weasley temper_.'

'Don't worry. We don't bite. I'm surprised that it was you that came though.'

'How come?'

'No reason, it's just... It doesn't matter.'

It was odd though. In the house there was his best friend, his sister, his mother and a girl who nobody except him could see. Why would Matthew be the one to come outside?

'To tell the truth, I sort of needed some time alone too,' Matthew said, answering Ron's unasked question.

'Oh, sorry. I'll leave you in peace.'

'No, wait. You don't have to... I think we can be alone together. I might still have some questions. I just couldn't deal with it in there any more. All of the magical things were starting to get to me.'

'I think that Dumbledore's spell might have worn off then.'

'I'm definitely less calm now,' Matthew agreed, with a nervous sort of chuckle. 'Even the cup of tea made me uncomfortable.'

'What do you mean? How can a cup of tea..?'

'Because it didn't get any colder. It just stayed at the perfect temperature. Even this one, which has been sitting in your house for half an hour.'

'Well yeah, of course. The mugs are charmed. Isn't there a Muggle equivalent though? I mean, I thought you could make stuff warm with eckeltricity.'

Matthew laughed at the mispronunciation.

'I suppose they might be able to make an electric mug that kept tea at the perfect temperature. It would probably cost a bundle though. Normally it just goes into a regular mug, and we have to reheat it if it goes cold.'

'Reheat with what?'

'A microwave normally.'

'And what does a microwave do?'

'Well, it heats stuff up obviously. And it makes some things explode, but you aren't supposed to do that, because it voids the warranty.'

Matthew spoke as though he had experience of this. He ran a hand through his long brown hair nervously, and Ron spied a glint of silver at the top of the boy's ear.

'You've had your ear pierced?'

'Yeah, why?'

'My brother had it done. Down at the bottom though. He hangs a dragon's tooth from it.'

For an instant, Ron regretted using the D-word, but if Matthew was shocked, he hid it very well.

'Cool!'

'Yeah. I've never seen a piercing at the top before though.'

'It's quite common in the real world,' explained Matthew, clearly not saying the word _Muggle_ out of principle.

He lifted his hair out of the way, to show the small ring which passed through the top of his ear.

'Didn't it hurt?'

'Nah, not really. It bugged the hell out of me for about a month afterwards though. You want to know what really hurt?'

'What?'

'This did,' said Matthew, opening his mouth wide and sticking out his tongue, to reveal a silver stud.

'Ow!' cried Ron, in sympathy. 'Why would you do that to yourself?'

'I thought it would look good...'

'It just looks painful to me.'

'Doesn't hurt any more.'

'I could never have anything like that done. I'd probably run away screaming at the last second.'

'I don't think so. I've been listening to your sister's stories, remember?'

Matthew looked up, and stared at Ron. Ron noticed for the first time that his eyes were different colours. The left eye was brown, but the right one was the same deep green colour as Harry's.

'That's different.'

'Of course. Facing certain death is a piece of cake, compared to getting your ear pierced.'

'It was hardly _certain death_. I'm still here aren't I?'

He didn't get a reply. Ron was surprised at how awestruck both Mary and Matthew had been. Ron hadn't done anything particularly special. The Muggles just didn't understand how dangerous life at Hogwarts was.

'Anyway,' Ron tried to change the subject, 'what's your life like? I don't know many Muggles. In fact, the only Muggle I know can't remember anything. What do you do?'

'You mean, when I'm not mutilating my body or making microwaves explode?'

'Yeah, apart from that...'

'I doubt you'd find it very interesting.'

'Try me... I mean, what do you do for fun? I don't know a thing about the Muggle world. Where would you take a girl if you wanted to go for a night out?'

'Ah. I'm not really the person to ask about that...'

'Don't worry. I'm useless with girls too. There's this friend of mine. I've known her since I was eleven. She drives me crazy, and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. She really does my head in most of the time.'

'But you like her?'

'I think so, yeah. I can never tell. My mind is so messed up right now.'

'What do you mean?'

'Promise you won't tell anybody?'

'I swear.'

'We'd be perfect together. I know her so well, know just what to say to get under her skin. She can make me smile like that,' Ron clicked his fingers. 'I've even started to figure out what makes _her_ happy, but...'

'But?'

'My body seems to be having second thoughts.'

Ron felt the familiar rush of blood to his cheeks, and he could tell that his ears had gone pink. Why he was entrusting this secret to a complete stranger he had no idea.

'I'm not _entirely_ sure that I follow you.'

'Merlin... You must know what I mean... When I think of her... I don't get all that _excited_.'

'Oh, sorry... I was having a dense moment there,' Matthew replied, his own cheeks reddening a little, although on his tanned face it was less obvious. 'So what do you think it means?'

'I think that maybe I've over-thought it. Or maybe I know her too well as a friend now.' _Or maybe I just don't like her like that, and I don't want to accept it._

'Well, as I said. I'm not the best person to ask about this sort of thing.'

'Why? You can't be much worse at it than me!'

'I... God, I don't know why this is so hard after the secret you just shared with me. I'm...'

'Mary!' said Ron, more loudly than was strictly necessary. It wasn't right to let Matthew spill his secrets when he didn't know he was being overheard.

'Hey, Ron,' said the invisible girl, coming out of the house by walking _through_ the closed door. 'Your mum wants you inside to help with the food.'

'Oh, right... Wait! How did she tell you?'

'Everybody else was already doing jobs for her, so she just looked at my chair and spoke. If you ask me, I don't think she believes I exist. This is some fancy test, to see whether I'm real or not.'

'Then we'd better go and spoil her theory... Could you just give me one more second here with Matthew?'

'Oh, sure. See you inside.'

After Mary had left, Ron turned to his other new friend.

'I don't know if we'll get any privacy after this, so if there's something you want to tell me, now's the time.'

'No, it doesn't matter.'

'Matt?'

'It isn't important. Let it go.'

- HPHPHP -

Throughout the midday meal, Ron's eyes kept falling onto Matthew's face. The boy was concealing something, and he obviously didn't want to. For the life of him, Ron couldn't imagine what it was.

Matthew's eyes were very expressive. If this boy _had_ been a wizard, Ron didn't doubt that he would have been awful at Occlumency. His awkwardness and embarrassment were written across his face. Clearly he regretted his near revelation. Ron stared across at him, and waited for Matthew to notice. It seemed to take an age. The boy was trying to avoid looking at him, which was very annoying. Finally their gazes met, and Ron gave a kind smile, to try and reassure him. Matthew automatically returned the smile, but then looked away, running his tongue across his top lip. As the piercing flashed into view, Ron decided that it _was_ quite cool really, once you were used to it.

Matthew's eyes did not turn in Ron's direction again for the rest of the meal, but that didn't stop Ron from trying to analyse the boy. His body language was very revealing. Almost as revealing as those eyes. There were all sorts of nervous twitches, especially when he noticed that Ron was watching. He was clearly very shy.

If he had been paying slightly less attention to Matthew, Ron would have noticed that Mary was studying him intently.

- HPHPHP -

'Mary, I know that you have some special circumstances, but you'll still have to sleep in Hermione and Ginny's room,' Molly announced to the room at large.

The afternoon and evening had passed lazily, with harmless conversation and chess games being played. Mary turned out to be a fairly decent player, although as Ron had been required to move the pieces for her, everybody had thought that he was helping her out.

'Mary doesn't need to sleep,' Ron explained, 'so I don't know what she's going to do all night.'

'I'll entertain myself,' Mary said. 'At least I have somebody to talk to during the days now.'

She paused.

'I'm glad you're so nice.'

'Thanks!' Ron laughed. 'I'm glad that you're nice too. We'll probably be stuck with each other for a while.'

'I can handle that...' she said.

Ron spontaneously decided to hug her, which drew laughs from the room. He initially thought that people were being derisive of his display of affection, but of course, it was because of how odd the hug looked to them. Her dual nature was still causing him occasional problems; she looked _so_ real to him, that it was impossible to visualise the room without her in it.

The hug broke apart, and the boys headed up to their room. Matthew had been offered space in the house for as long as he wanted, until Dumbledore could assure his safety at home. The three boys had decided to share Ron's room, even though there were now a number of empty rooms in the house. His mother had cast a hasty enlarging charm on the bedroom, which had added an extra metre to the width, but she refused to increase the size any more. She reckoned that further enlargements might make the entire building unstable. The arrangements were cosy, to put it mildly.

Three single beds (one of them transfigured from a rug, and one transfigured from a desk) took up almost all of the floor space in the room. Matthew refused to sleep on a transfigured object, worried that it might change back in the middle of the night, so he had to take the real bed, which was at the farthest point from the door.

Ron chose next, and he took the middle bed. If Harry had another Voldemort nightmare, he wanted to be between the two boys. Matthew didn't need to experience _that_ at close range.

Actually getting into the beds was more tricky than Ron had expected, it was a case of clambering across the mattresses. Still, eventually each boy had made it onto their own bed. They began to undress quickly, talking about the events of the day.

'I hope that your friend Dumbledore will be able to sort all of this out before my parents get back from Spain,' Matthew said, biting his lip.

'When will they get back?' Ron asked.

'A week tomorrow. They only left me in charge of the house for a fortnight. I think they were worried that I might have some crazy drunken parties. God knows what they'll do when they find out I've been working for an evil dictator who wants to kill everybody.'

'Could have happened to anybody,' Ron said lightly, which made Matthew laugh. 'Seriously though, it could.'

'You're lucky your parents weren't home,' Harry added. 'It would have been far worse if they had been. Voldemort only needed one person for the mission.'

Matthew's face paled. Ron thought that Harry's words had been quite tactless, so he sent his friend a glare. Harry made an apologetic expression.

'Still, there's no need to worry now,' he added. 'Dumbledore will have everything back to normal long before they get back. He's a genius, you know?'

'So I've been told.'

'He'll probably put some wards onto your house to keep the Death Eaters away, and set up a monitoring charm, so that he can keep an eye on the situation. Your parents will never find out about the wizarding world.'

'So, I won't be able to talk to anybody about all this?' Matthew asked, worriedly.

'You can talk to us,' Ron clarified. 'We'll figure out a way for you to stay in touch, if you like.'

'Good. I don't think I could just forget about all of this.'

'We could _make you_ forget, if it would be easier...' suggested Harry.

'No! I don't want to!' Matthew quickly cut in. 'I can't believe that there's a whole secret world that nobody knows about. I definitely don't want to forget about it again.'

'Well, like I said,' soothed Harry. 'Dumbledore's in control of it, so I wouldn't worry too much. He won't make you do anything you don't want to do.'

Ron was impressed at how loyal Harry still was to Dumbledore, even after everything the boy had been through, whilst supposedly under the headmaster's protection.

- HPHPHP -

The three of them stayed up late, chatting together. At about midnight, an Apparation crack indicated that Ron's dad had finally made it back from the operation on Privet Drive, easing the boys' nerves slightly, and giving them even more topics for discussion. Ron and Harry had been apart for a while, so they had plenty to talk about, but the majority of the conversation was with Matthew. He kept coming up with new questions about wizarding life, and Ron found that Harry (having been raised by Muggles) didn't know many of the answers. At about one o'clock, Harry drifted into dreamland, leaving the new friends to talk privately.

As soon as Ron realised that Harry was out for the count, he tried to ask Matthew about his secret, but he just got a grunt in response, before the boy started asking more questions. Perplexed, but not wanting to push the issue, Ron contented himself with answering the harmless inquiries, and watching for the fleck of silver, which sometimes appeared when Matthew spoke.

Ron finally fell asleep at quarter past four, but the unconsciousness was short-lived.

A thud and a sharp pain in the chest pulled Ron back into the land of the living an hour later. Yet again, he awoke to find a face just inches from his own. This time it was Matthew.

'Sorry,' the Muggle whispered. 'I nipped out to the loo. I had some problems getting back over to my bed.'

Matthew was sprawled out across Ron. He had landed chest down, body perfectly aligned with Ron's, their noses nearly touching. Ron glanced at the boy's awkward position, and realised how little Matthew was wearing. Just a pair of smart black boxers. Ron was wearing similar underwear himself, although obviously a lot tattier. If it wasn't for the blanket between them, there would be a hell of a lot of skin contact.

Ron wondered why he had just thought that. Taking care to avoid Matthew's gaze, he glanced over at Harry, to see whether the commotion had woken him. It hadn't.

'Your friend is a heavy sleeper,' Matthew smirked.

'Sometimes...' agreed Ron, thinking about Harry's frequent dreams of Voldemort.

Matthew squirmed a little on top of Ron.

'I've got my foot tangled in your under-sheet,' he said finally.

He wiggled a little more. Ron felt the sheets sliding over his trapped torso, and weight pushing down on him in intimate places. He let out a soft involuntary groan.

'Sorry mate. Did that hurt?' asked Matthew, concernedly.

It definitely wasn't pain that Ron had just felt. He tried to keep a straight face, he didn't want to embarrass a new friend.

'No. No, er... Just sort yourself out. I'm fine. Didn't hurt at all. Honest.'

Ron smiled, and looked into Matthew's eyes, which turned out to be a mistake. Matthew held Ron's gaze, and stopped moving completely. They stayed like that, staring at each other, for a very long moment.

Ron felt a very unwelcome stirring in his chest, which began to head south like wildfire. Silently cursing his body's peculiar behaviour, Ron tried to remain as still as possible and think non-sexual thoughts. He was utterly unsuccessful. He began to panic as blood flooded into his sleeping member and brought it to life. There was one sheet, and one moth-eaten old blanket between the pair. There was no way that Matthew could mistake what was happening, but what could Ron do about it? If he moved, it would just draw attention to the lump under the covers. Mentally sweating, Ron tried to think of disgusting images, but still his teenage hormones retained control. The swelling increased, and the pressure built up. Any second now, Matt would realise what was going on.

Ron chanced another glance up into the tanned boy's face. He was still smiling softly, and he hadn't even attempted to get up for nearly a minute now. Ron wondered how quickly the smile would disappear, once Ron's erection made itself known. He had to take control of this now, explain the situation before it was too late, and hope that Matthew wasn't too disgusted.

He took a shallow breath, and prepared to make the most humiliating apology of his entire life, but he didn't get a chance. Matthew's expression suddenly shifted. He had clearly noticed the pressure against his leg. For a second, he did nothing, as Ron spluttered, but then suddenly he pressed his weight forwards into the blanket. That stunned Ron, but not half as much as the kiss which followed. It was frantic, almost desperate, and it was brief. The worst thing about it though, was that afterwards, Ron wasn't entirely sure that Matthew had started it.

- HPHPHP -

If Ron had been a little older, he might have recognised the feelings which accompanied dawn, as they were very similar to the feelings which follow a night of heavy drinking. Disbelief was dominant among them, disbelief that he had gotten an erection because of a guy. Disbelief that he had kissed a guy (or at least allowed a guy to kiss him). Disbelief that it hadn't seemed all that weird at the time, just very scary. Disbelief was closely followed by regret. Ron didn't really understand what had happened, but he knew that it hadn't been a wise move. Even if Matthew had been a beautiful girl, she would have been traumatised after her introduction to the magical world. It wouldn't have been right to take advantage of her vulnerability last night. Throwing in the fact that Matthew was a boy just made the whole situation too complicated to deal with.

Nothing had been resolved during the night. Matthew had recognised the terrified expression in Ron's eyes when the kiss was over. He had quickly shuffled onto his own bed, giving Ron one last awkward look, before pulling the covers up over his body until they covered his head.

He was still lying in the same place now, although the covers had shifted during the night, so that Ron could see his sleeping face. He looked peaceful, which wasn't a surprise. Everybody looks peaceful when they are sleeping. Ron tried to study the boy objectively. What was it about Matthew that had provoked such a bizarre reaction? There wasn't anything particularly special about his face. He had flawless skin, admittedly, and a healthy tan, but Ron knew loads of guys who would be considered better looking than Matthew. The only obvious difference was the 'Muggle-factor'. Matthew had piercings, something that was very uncommon on wizarding men. He had an unusual haircut, which most wizards would consider too girly for a boy. He also had countless tales of Muggle life, which entertained Ron immensely.

But still... Even with all of that, straight boys didn't just suddenly get turned on by random men. Which only left one, fairly intimidating, conclusion. Ron wasn't a straight boy.

Not even wanting to consider that possibility, Ron scrambled out of his bed, grabbed a dressing gown from the floor, then clambered carefully over Harry's prone form and out of the room - away from the source of his discomfort. Mary was waiting for him in the hallway, sitting propped up against the wall and juggling with a bunch of keys.

'Hi, Ron,' she greeted him cheerfully. 'You're up early.'

'Couldn't sleep,' Ron lied with a grunt.

'They don't snore, do they?' Mary asked with a smile, and a nod towards the bedroom door.

'No. It wasn't their fault,' he replied, dully.

That was another lie. This was all Matthew's fault. Life would be easier once he'd left. Things could get back to normal, and Ron could pretend that none of this had ever happened.

'What's wrong?' Mary asked, insightfully.

'Huh?'

'Well, you were in a good mood last night, and this morning you look really worried about something.'

'Oh... It's nothing. Really.'

'Come on! What happened? Was it something to do with Matthew?'

'What? No! Why would you say that?' Ron spluttered in surprise.

'Well it must have been something that happened in the bedroom, and since you've known Harry for ages, it probably wasn't anything to do with him. Plus...'

Mary trailed off mid-sentence.

'Plus what?' Ron asked, sharply.

'You kept staring at Matthew, all through yesterday afternoon.'

'I didn't!'

'You _so_ did!'

'That's just...'

'Ron. Why are you trying to deny it? It isn't exactly like I can tell anybody, is it?'

That was true. Mary would make an excellent confidante, and he did need to talk to somebody.

'We kissed,' he said, very quietly. 'Or at least, he kissed me.'

'And?'

'And what? I kissed a boy! Isn't that enough?'

'So, you didn't know you were gay?' Mary laughed.

'Shh!' Ron hissed.

'Nobody can hear me, remember?'

'Oh yeah,' Ron realised, before responding to the original question. 'I'm not gay!'

'Bisexual then...'

'No! I just...'

'Kissed a guy.'

'Look, I know it sounds bad...'

'It doesn't sound bad. There isn't anything wrong with it.'

'Fine, but I'm not gay.'

'Okay, okay. You're not gay!' Mary relented. 'I suppose that you could just be experiencing some sort of a weird one-off crush.'

'You think?'

'Maybe. Having a bit of a crush on a guy doesn't necessarily make you gay.'

'It doesn't?'

'Well, it's obviously a fairly good sign that you might be, but no, I reckon that you _could_ be a confused straight guy...'

'You're enjoying this, aren't you?'

'It's just _so_ cute! How did it happen?'

'How did what happen?'

'The kiss.'

'Oh...' Ron answered with a wince. 'I don't know! He was there, and I was there, and it just sort of... happened.'

'Come on! You can do better than that. Kisses don't just happen. Especially between straight guys.'

'I don't think that Matthew _is_ straight. He started it.' _Sort of._ 'Plus, I reckon he was trying to tell me he was gay yesterday, but I was being totally oblivious.'

'So what? He just jumped on you in the night?'

'No, he fell.'

'Huh?'

Mary laughed.

'He fell on you?' she asked, incredulously.

'At least, he said he did,' Ron continued, suddenly suspicious. 'When he came back from the bathroom, he tripped over me, and woke me up.'

'Or maybe he did it on purpose,' Mary suggested, interpreting Ron's suspicious tone, 'because he fancies you too.'

'I don't fancy him!' Ron snapped, indignantly.

'Well, whatever. So he fell on you, and then what? Did he just kiss you straight away?'

'No, he said sorry, and then...'

Ron trailed off. Then he had gotten an erection, which had given Matthew the impression that he was interested. He couldn't exactly tell Mary about _that_.

'...we stared at each other for a bit, and I remember thinking how strange his eyes were. It was a bit like I was hypnotised for a second...'

'Aww... that's so sweet.'

'Shut up. I'm not a girl. It's not like I'm infatuated with him or anything. He's just got really odd eyes.'

'Then what?'

'Then we kissed...'

'But he started it?'

'Yeah... I think so.'

'Ooohh, you think so? This is getting more and more interesting.'

'Shut it. He _must_ have started it. I wouldn't...'

'But you don't remember?'

'It happened so suddenly.'

'And what was it like?'

'Er... Well, even if I didn't start it, I certainly joined in.'

'And?'

'It didn't last for very long, but while we were kissing, I definitely wasn't thinking about how weird it was.'

'So you enjoyed it?'

'Well physically, it felt great. To be honest though, I don't have anything to compare it to.'

'He was your _first_ kiss? That's so...'

'If you say it's sweet, or cute, one more time, I'm going to throw up.'

'Adorable?'

Ron made a fake retching sound, which Mary laughed at.

'So, what do you think?' Ron asked, after Mary had been silent for a few seconds.

'Well, to be honest, I think you should at least consider the possibility that you might be gay.'

'I don't have a problem with gay guys, but don't you think I would know if I was?'

'Yes, you're right,' Mary began, in a mock-serious tone. 'You _would_ know, because you'd get crushes on other boys... Oh wait!'

'Very funny. If I was gay, it would have happened before now. I know loads of boys who are more attractive than Matthew.'

'So you think boys are attractive?' Mary teased.

'God, can't you be serious for a second? You're worse than my brothers!'

'Sorry. If you really want to know my opinion...'

'I do.'

'I think that you've probably never had a reason to question your sexuality. You assumed you were straight, because that was how you were brought up.'

'You mean...'

'Boys are generally expected to fancy girls. Maybe you've just never considered it properly.'

'And now...'

'Now Matthew comes along. He's completely different to the boys you know, and you find yourself paying more attention to him than you normally would. Once you've started properly considering it, you realise that you might actually be interested in him.'

'Just him though?'

'Who knows? It could be just him, or it could be men in general.'

Ron paled a little.

'So what now. I go round checking out guys, and seeing if I find any of them attractive?'

'Why not? It's not like it'll do any harm. There is one thing that I think you should do first though.'

'Oh? What's that?'

'Talk to Matthew about it.'

'No way! I can't! It'll be way too embarrassing.'

'He's going to be around for a while, maybe a week, and he's sharing a room with you. That's going to get awkward quickly if you don't clear the air.'

'But...'

'Just do it. Besides, if anybody knows what you're going through, it'll be Matthew. He can probably offer you better advice than I can.'

'I've changed my mind. Can you go back to taking the piss out of me? I don't like it when you're being sensible!'

- HPHPHP -

Reluctant though he was to admit it, Ron realised that Mary had made a valid point. Matthew was going to be around for a while. Avoidance wasn't an option, and trying to pretend that nothing had happened was risky. Matthew might resort to explaining the situation to Harry, or Ginny, which would expose Ron's secret. Better to tackle the problem like a man, with an adult conversation.

The problem was, Ron didn't feel much like an adult at the moment. He felt like a confused child. How were you supposed to raise a subject like this? He couldn't exactly just waltz up to Matthew and say:

'Hi mate, remember last night, when I got a hard-on, and kissed you? I was wondering what you thought about that.'

There had to be some kind of... procedure... that he ought to be following. Some safe way of broaching the subject without being vulgar or insulting.

Ron paced into the kitchen and sat in a small wooden chair. The mirror above the toaster greeted him cheerily, but recognising Ron's stressed expression, it decided not to make any further comments. A spoon, which the twins had obviously been experimenting on, twitched nervously on the table in front of him. Absent-mindedly, Ron held it still with his hand, to cease the distraction, and give him a more calm environment for his contemplation.

He was, however, drawn almost immediately from his thoughts by the emergence of the boy in question. Matthew walked into the kitchen, and sat down at the table, directly opposite Ron's chair. He was not yet fully dressed, instead wearing a towel around his waist, and an old Chudley Cannons T-shirt, which Ron recognised as one of his own. His hair was dripping - he'd clearly just had a shower.

'Er...' Ron began, uselessly.

'Good morning,' Matthew replied, although he looked firmly at the wooden table-top whilst he spoke.

'Where did you... I mean, who said that you could borrow... not that I mind of course,' Ron managed.

'Huh?'

'The T-shirt.'

'Oh. Your mum. I ran into her upstairs. I don't have any other clothes with me. She said I could borrow some of yours.'

'That's... that's my favourite shirt.'

'Oh,' Matthew said, clearly worried. 'I'm sorry. She never said. I'll go and find something else.'

He stood.

'No! Wait,' Ron barked, more loudly than was strictly necessary. 'It's fine. I don't mind.'

'You sure.'

'Yeah. Yeah, of course. It's only a shirt. I was just surprised, that's all.'

'Who are the Chudley Cannons anyway?'

'I'm going to let you off for saying that, since you're a Muggle.'

And that was all it took to launch Ron into a monologue about Quidditch and broomsticks, and why the Chudley Cannons were the best team in the entire world. He became more and more comfortable, and as Matthew began to interject with questions and sarcastic comments, the tension in the air dissipated almost completely.

'So,' Matthew asked, as Ron finished telling another story about the Chudley Beaters, which involved cutlery-based reconstructions of the events. 'Can I ask you a question?'

'Sure! Fire away.' Ron agreed, pleased that he knew so much about his subject.

'What the hell happened last night?'

The enthusiasm and pleasure that Ron had been getting from this conversation seemed to evaporate. Momentarily unable to talk, Ron listened to the growing silence instead. His heart-beat got faster and louder, until it was beating so heavily that Ron thought Matthew could probably see his chest moving. His stomach was churning, in a way that it hadn't done since he took his practical O.W.L. exams.

'Erm... I don't really know,' he eventually croaked.

'But I mean... Are you gay or not?'

Ron didn't respond.

'Because you seemed interested before I kissed you, and you seemed to be joining in, but then afterwards... That look you gave me! Like I was the most disgusting thing you'd ever seen.'

Ron still couldn't think of what to say.

'I mean, did I get it wrong? Because it felt like you were...'

'Stop!' Ron interrupted, before Matthew could finish his sentence. 'I don't know! I don't know any of it. I don't know if I'm gay or not. I've never kissed a guy before. I've never even _thought_ about kissing a guy before.'

'But last night... You wanted to? I didn't make a mistake?'

Ron finally realised what Matthew was worried about.

'Oh! You're worried that you might have forced me to do something?'

Matthew bowed his head, meekly, and Ron leapt to his defence.

'No! I was confused and terrified, but I definitely provoked you. I mean, I was the one with the hard-on, for Merlin's sake! I'm just... I'm worried about what it all means.'

'So, you don't think I'm disgusting?'

'Of course not. I just... freaked a bit, that's all.'

'A bit?'

'Well, okay, a lot. But you have to admit, this is a fairly major thing.'

'It's only major if you make it major.'

'What? I might like boys! How can that be _not major_?'

'I've known I was gay since I was about twelve. It's not really affected my life much.'

'Everybody's okay with it?'

'Well, I don't exactly shout it from the rooftops, but yeah. My parents know, and my friends. They've all been fine. Why? Do you think your family might not accept it?'

'I haven't got a clue. It's never really come up. They're pretty liberal though. They might be okay with it. It's me that's having trouble accepting the possibility.'

'Well, you could be straight of course,' Matthew offered, sensing Ron's awkwardness. 'Everybody was a bit stressed yesterday. Maybe it all just burst out of you in a fit of random passion.'

'Nice theory,' Ron agreed with a smile. 'Except, my life has been far more stressful than this, and I've not launched myself at any of my room-mates yet.'

Matthew laughed, a light chuckle, which was oddly musical.

'Maybe none of your room-mates are as pretty as me,' he suggested, light-heartedly, but Ron recognised the insecurity behind the bravado.

'That must be it,' he returned, sarcastically.

'Or maybe it was because you realised I was gay?' offered Matthew, trying to be more helpful.

'No, I didn't know that you were gay until you kissed me.'

'Isn't it possible that you suspected it, subconsciously.'

'I guess...'

But Ron didn't think so. He decided to tell Matthew what his confidante had said.

'Mary told me that I might just be a straight guy with a little crush, but secretly I think she's pretty confident that I'm gay.'

'Well yes, I think you probably are...'

That stunned Ron a little, because it was said so earnestly. Furthermore, Ron was already starting to have his own suspicions that it might be true.

'It would be easier if I knew.'

'There's not a lot I can do to help you, I'm afraid. You need to work it out on your own.'

'I thought that this was the sort of thing that you were supposed to know instinctively.'

'Of course not. I don't know about wizards, but in my world, marriages break up all the time because people suddenly realise that they're gay. It's a fairly common plot in television shows!'

Thankfully, time spent with Harry and Hermione had filled Ron in on the basic concept of television, so he didn't need a long-winded explanation.

'So, there's no real way to figure out whether I am gay or not?'

'I can give you some pointers...' Matt offered.

'Pointers?'

'You know? A list of things to look out for.'

'Like what?'

'Well firstly, sex.'

Ron blushed, but Matthew didn't pause.

'Gay sex is a bit different to sex with a girl. I reckon if the idea of going _all the way_ with a man doesn't put you off, you're almost definitely gay. Or at least bisexual. Straight men can make themselves kiss guys, and maybe imagine getting a blowjob from a fit boy, but you'll not find many heterosexual men who can imagine gay sex in their head without flinching.'

Ron began to take the first test, but any attempt to imagine himself alone with a man conjured up images of Matt's semi-naked body sprawled across his bed, flashbacks to the night before. If this was going to be the man that Ron imagined himself having sex with, he certainly wasn't going to take the test whilst the boy was actually in the room. Matthew seemed to notice the tension, and perhaps even guessed what was causing it, because he seemed a little off balance when he started to talk again.

'Er... the second test. If sex puts you off, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're straight. Quite a few gay men aren't into the whole anal sex thing. So... oh hang on! Shit!'

'What?'

'Well for my second test, I was going to make you use the internet. But clearly, you don't get the internet here.'

'The internet?'

'Well, simply put, it's a way to find any piece of information in the world, from inside your own house.'

'Muggles can do that? That's incredible!'

'Yeah. It's only been around for about a decade though.'

'And how were you going to make me use it?'

'Well, it can be used to find pictures and videos as well. Of practically anything. There's a bit of a joke among us _Muggles_, that the internet is only really used to look at porn.'

'Really?' Ron boggled at the possibilities.

'Yeah. I was going to get you to download some pictures of naked men, and see whether they turned you on.'

Instantly Ron's head went pink, but it wasn't just because of the suggestion. It was because he'd had an idea about how to make it work.

'I think I know how I can do that test actually,' he admitted. 'It isn't just Muggles who invent clever things.'

'What? Do wizards have some kind of internet substitute?'

'Oh no! It's way better than that. But go on, I want to know if there are any more tests.'

'Oh, well, sort of.'

'Really? Go on...'

'The third test...'

'Yeah?'

'You, er... You let me kiss you again.'

Absolute silence.

'Only if you think it'll help, obviously...' Matthew eventually added, nervously.

Ron's head was reeling. The thing was, as the Muggle boy suggested each test, Ron felt a thrill of excitement at the prospect of trying them out. That seemed to suggest that the tests themselves might be pretty unnecessary. He decided to be brave and make a bold move.

'I... I think that I'd like that.'

Matthew's sudden smile lit up his face, which seemed to make him about twice as attractive. Instantly, the confused rush of energy began again in Ron's stomach, though this time it didn't head south, but instead raced up towards his brain. The fact that Matthew was wearing his favourite T-shirt was no longer an arbitrary piece of information, it was vitally important. Whether he was gay or not, Ron knew at once that he really liked this boy, that he wanted to kiss this boy. Defining himself could come later - now he just wanted to express himself.

Not giving the Muggle a chance to take the initiative, Ron surged forwards, and took the boy's bottom lip between his own.

About a minute later Ron was interrupted from his exploration, by the sound of a girl clearing her throat. Hoping against hope that it was Mary, coming to check on his progress, he broke off the kiss and turned around slowly. He was in luck.

'Well, I see you've sorted out some of your issues,' she remarked, clearly amused. 'But if I was you, I'd snog your boyfriend somewhere more private. Your sister's on her way downstairs right now.'

Ron passed on the message (though without using the word 'boyfriend') and moved a safe distance away from Matthew. Sure enough, less than ten seconds later, Ginny burst into the room.

'Morning Matthew,' she said. 'Oh, and Mary too, if you're in here.'

Ron nodded a confirmation.

'D'you wanna make me a bacon buttie, Ron? I'm starving...'

'Make your own,' he retorted. 'I need to get a shower. And Matt, I can show you where to find some decent jeans.'

'Fine, suit yourself,' Ginny replied, acting hurt, but looking entertained. 'I suppose you won't say no if _I_ offer to make breakfast for _you_ though?'

'You're an angel,' Ron gushed, truly surprised at the offer. 'I'll take one of those bacon sandwiches, and whatever Matty wants.'

'Same please. If it's not too much trouble.'

'Nah. It's not much harder to do three than it is to do one. Just go up with Ron and sort your clothes out, and then you can come down for food and a chat while he's showering.'

The idea of his sister having an in depth conversation with Matthew sent a brief wave of unease through Ron's body, but he controlled his reaction. After all, it wasn't like the Muggle was an idiot. He surely knew how to keep a secret.

'So, where are these decent jeans then?' Matt asked. 'Cos I'm not sure that the towel look is going to catch on any time soon.'

'Come on. I'll show you.'

- HPHPHP -

The warm jet of water sprayed down on Ron's hair and back, lightly pricking his skin, in a pleasant sort of way. He always liked to think in the shower, which didn't make him popular in such a large household: time in the shower was a valuable commodity. This morning, however, he felt that his thinking time was justified. His mind was practically in overdrive, trying to process all of the data that it had received.

So, he was gay? Maybe. Definitely he fancied Matthew more than he'd ever fancied anybody. Which was very weird. He barely even knew the boy. What was it about this particular Muggle? Once more, Ron tried to objectively judge Matthew's appearance. The problem was that wizarding fashions didn't have any place for slender boys: stylish robes and Quidditch gear were always modelled by muscle bound Gods of men. Skinny wizards didn't try to advertise the fact. Matt on the other hand, really did everything he could to emphasise his slightly girly physique. The longish hair, the piercings, everything conformed to a style that Ron simply didn't recognise. _That_ was why Ron hadn't thought Matt was attractive straight away. Truthfully though, the style worked exceptionally well on him. The boy might not be handsome, but he was definitely beautiful.

Ron noticed that at some point in this thought process, his hand had slipped down his body, to grasp an already hardening penis. He let go quickly, embarrassed at himself, but almost immediately he remembered Matt's advice about imagining sexual situations. Defiantly taking hold of himself again, he began to daydream...

_Ron was sitting on the end of his bed._

No, that wasn't right. He tried again.

_Ron was sitting in a luscious hotel room, on the end of a giant double bed. He was alone, but dressed in rich black dress robes. There was a knock at the door. Who could it be? Enthusiastically padding across the thick carpet, Ron took the door handle and threw it open. Standing there was Matthew, in Ron's old Chudley Cannon's T-shirt, lower body wrapped in a towel. His hair was wet, and it dripped onto the orange material, leaving snail tracks of deeper colour. Normally, such a crime against Ron's favourite shirt would have been just cause for violence, but today it wasn't even noticed._

_Ron invited the damp man into his room gladly. Slamming the door behind him, Matt pounced at the redhead, and pulled him into a tight embrace. Their lips locked together magnetically. Ron was completely lost in the sensation, but even now, Matt was steering him towards the bed. As his knees hit the edge of the mattress, they gave way, pulling Ron down to a sitting position, and away from his partner's lips. The momentary separation gave the brunette ample time to whip off the orange T-shirt, and fling it across the room._

_Ron's mouth was once more enveloped in another bruising kiss, though Matt still continued to steer him around in his more agreeable state. This time, they were shifting up the bed, until Ron was laid flat on his back, with the other boy's knees alongside his stomach. Matt's naked torso hypnotised Ron, just as it had on the day they had met. His perfect belly-button, his nipples. They weren't just body parts, they had magical properties. The boys' erections were pressing into each other, through layers of towel and robe. Ron needed to feel the touch of Matt's skin, needed to get out of his clothes. He reached for the knot on his partner's towel..._

'Ron, are you going to be in there all day?' came his mother's voice through the bathroom door.

That completely severed Ron from his fantasy world. The hand at his groin guiltily leapt to a safe distance.

'I'll... I'll just be another minute, Mum,' he promised.

All thoughts of sex momentarily quelled, Ron began to clean himself properly.

- HPHPHP -

Matthew's melodic laughter was echoing through the house when Ron made his way downstairs quarter of an hour later. He was wearing his least scruffy T-shirt and jeans, though both still looked a little rough around the seams. The chuckles sent shivers down Ron's back, and he chastised himself. He was behaving like a preteen witch with a crush. He sternly told himself that fancying a man didn't automatically mean he should start acting like a girl.

Curious to learn what was the cause of Matthew's mirth, Ron sped his descent. By the time he had reached the kitchen, the laughter had stopped, but as soon as he entered the room it began again. Ginny, Matt and Mary were sitting around the table and they all looked highly amused about something...

'Hi Ron,' Matthew snorted between breaths. 'Your sister was just telling me about your Quidditch career.'

Ron scowled viciously at Ginny.

'Hey! You came downstairs too quickly,' Ginny tried to explain. 'I was just about to tell him about the final game of the season...'

Ron sent a doubtful glance her way, but she had a secret weapon up her sleeve...

'I made you that bacon butty you wanted...' she taunted, before pointing across the room. 'It's over there, where Mum normally leaves her wand...'

'Good. Well, you can finish the story while I eat my breakfast. But I'll be listening, so you'd better tell it properly.'

- HPHPHP -

That morning, for the first time in weeks, the clouds held back, allowing the sun to beat down on the Burrow's windows. The good weather had a spirit-raising effect on the inhabitants of the lopsided house. When Harry came downstairs, he was wearing a genuine grin, as he pointed to the blue sky and suggested a flying demonstration, for Matthew and Mary's benefit. The Muggles were definitely fond of that plan: Matthew was practically bouncing up and down in childish anticipation, whereas Mary was very doubtful that broomflight was possible.

The back field that the Weasleys practised in was still boggy in patches, and so Ron, Ginny and Harry launched their brooms from the gate, leaving the astonished Matthew to plod clumsily through the thick mud. Mary was a little distracted to realise that the mud didn't give way for her at all. She was able to stomp across the field heavily without making footprints. Even rolling around on the floor, which she tried gleefully, left no impression, and her clothes remained as clean as if she had just put them on. Soon however, the girl's attention was drawn back to the aerial ballet above her head.

'Wanna ride?' Ron asked, as he swooped down next to her.

'Yeah!' she replied, excitedly.

But for some reason, she couldn't manage to sit on the broom. It didn't really make sense. Mary had been able to sit on chairs and beds, but the broom was not permitting it. She slipped through the wooden handle and fell to the floor. Mary tried twice more, before abandoning the attempt. Ron wondered whether maybe it was her own fault, and she couldn't sit on the broom because she was nervous about flight, but he didn't voice his opinions. Instead he floated over to Matt.

'How about you? Do you want a go?'

Matthew grinned an infectious grin, and deftly swung a mud-caked boot over the broom, sliding into place behind Ron.

'Thought you might not ask...' he said, glancing up at Ginny and Harry, who were chasing each other around in circles.

'Hey, so long as you don't try to snog me, they won't notice anything. They're a bit pre-occupied.'

'I'll try to resist!'

Ron kicked off.

Matt screamed, but the wail of horror soon became a whoop of delight. The joy seemed to conduct through Matthew's tight grip on Ron's waist, and into Ron's bloodstream. Ron pushed his Cleansweep forwards recklessly. Matt's breath on the back of his neck was making hairs all down Ron's back stand on end. A sharp U-turn made the broom shake, and Matt pressed himself more firmly into Ron's body. Once more Ron's head was plagued with images of the semi-naked boy from the night before.

Then as suddenly as the images had appeared, they vanished, to be replaced with the cackling face of Bellatrix Lestrange. She only hung in Ron's mind for a second, but it was enough to make him completely lose control of his broom. It swung suddenly into a vertical climb, and Matt slipped off the back of it. Not even thinking, Ron twisted the broom 180° into a dive, and began fumbling for his wand.

Drawing the rod from his jeans clumsily, he cast a cushioning charm directly at the ground. Silently praying that he had done it correctly, he dropped the wand, and reached out the now empty hand towards his falling friend. Making a frantic grasp about ten feet from the ground, Ron pulled upwards, slowing Matthew's descent considerably, but speeding up his own fall.

Half a second later, Ron met the ground.


	4. Cross

**Chapter Four: Cross**

Three blurry shapes crowded into Ron's field of vision. Two of them seemed to be the same shade of orange.

'Where am I?' he tried to say, though it came out as an unintelligible slur.

'Ron?' asked a very familiar voice, which was sounding more frayed than he had ever heard it.

'Mum?' he replied, and the word came out far more clearly.

'Are you alright?'

'Can't see properly...'

'You hit your head pretty hard,' came a different voice, just as kindly, though he didn't recognise this one. 'Your sight will be fine. It'll probably sort itself out in the next hour or so.'

'Who's that?'

'My name is Healer Sanborne. You're in a ward at St. Mungo's.'

That sounded serious. When Ron had launched his broom at the ground to catch Matthew, he hadn't thought that he was high enough to put himself into hospital. Not that he would have done anything differently.

'Is Matty okay? I tried to cast a Cushioning charm, but I don't think it worked.'

'Your Cushioning charm was perfect,' came Ginny's voice, 'but you both missed it by about a foot. Matt's in a bed over there.'

The blurry shapes above Ron's face moved around, but Ron couldn't tell where they were directing him to look.

'Can't tell where you're pointing, but it doesn't matter. I won't be able to see him anyway. How is he?'

'He's in a rough state, Ron,' came his mother's voice again, very gently. 'They're not sure he's going to survive. Muggle bodies aren't quite as resilient as ours.'

Ron was stunned more effectively than if Hermione had Stupefied him. Hadn't he caught up with the boy and pulled him upwards? Surely the impact with the ground hadn't been _that_ heavy.

'We've done everything we can for him,' the Healer apologised. 'His bones are fixed, his cuts are healed. If he does wake up, he won't be in pain. We just aren't sure about his head. He could be brain damaged, or he might not wake up at all. I'm sorry.'

She paused for a second, and Ginny took over.

'It was terrible. We heard him screaming, and saw you trying to catch him, but there wasn't anything we could do to help. We were too far away.'

'What happened?' his mother asked. 'How did he fall off your broom?'

Ron was almost scared to admit that he'd lost control. If Matthew didn't recover from this, then that made Ron responsible for the boy's death. Still, he couldn't pretend it hadn't happened. That would only make the guilt worse.

'I don't really know what happened...' he started, cautiously. 'We'd only been up there for a few seconds, and then I remember that I suddenly saw something, and it made me lose control of my broom.'

'You saw something?' his mother asked.

'Yeah.'

'What did you see?' asked Ginny. 'Because me and Harry didn't see anything. We looked around, to make sure that nobody had jinxed you...'

'No, not in the field,' Ron clarified. 'It was a picture in my head.'

'Of what?' Mrs. Weasley asked, delicately. The tone of her voice seemed to be very carefully measured, as though she was trying to sound calmer than she felt.

'I... I don't remember...' Ron replied.

The knowledge seemed to have been knocked out of his head by the collision.

'Is that what you were muttering about?' Ginny asked, to Ron's complete bemusement.

'What do you mean?'

'When we found you,' Ginny said. 'You were saying something, but we couldn't really hear you. Don't you remember?'

'No. Didn't you catch anything?'

'Harry thought he caught one word.'

'Ginny, no! He doesn't need to know that now.'

'Know what?'

'Nothing dear. Just concentrate on getting better.'

'Mum! I need to know what happened. Matthew's lying in here because of me. I can't ignore that, so at least tell me what you know.'

His mother made a low tutting sound, as though she was considering the request, but she didn't have a choice in the matter.

'Harry thought you said Lestrange,' Ginny blurted out. 'That's why we checked around for Death Eaters. But you passed out, and Matthew was already unconscious and bleeding out of his head, so we didn't have time to check very thoroughly.'

The words brought back the image that Ron had forgotten. The cackling face of Bellatrix Lestrange, which had disturbed Ron so badly that he'd completely lost the ability to fly.

'Yes! I saw Bellatrix Lestrange's face, laughing at me,' he exposited. 'But, what does that even mean?'

'I don't know...' admitted Healer Sanborne. 'I know it sounds insane, but have you had any contact with Death Eaters recently.'

'Of course not!' Ron yelled. 'Who do you think I am? I'm Harry Potter's best friend.'

'I didn't mean...' the Healer back-tracked. 'I didn't mean to suggest that you were in league with them. I only wondered if you had been near to them... Close enough to be cursed.'

'Not since June, and I've been fine since then.'

If the news that Ron had been close to Death Eaters surprised the nurse, she disguised it well.

'And have you spent any time around anybody else who could have been cursed?'

Ron's brain seemed reluctant to work. It felt like the machinery inside his head was in serious need of oiling.

'Er... I don't think so...'

But his mother cut him off immediately.

'Yes he has. Two people actually. Matthew, over there, had the Imperius curse placed on him yesterday, by somebody in a Death Eater mask. There's also a girl called Mary living in our house at the moment, who can't remember anything that happened more than a week ago.'

'I'll need to give both of them examinations to check for lingering curses.'

'I'm afraid that Mary won't be able to take any such test, but Professor Dumbledore has personally examined her, and declared her safe.'

The Healer didn't question this lie at all. Ron wasn't sure why his mother was protecting Mary so devotedly, but he didn't appreciate the deception. Professor Dumbledore _had not_ been able to examine Mary. He had made Ron perform the charm. If Ron hadn't got it right, there was a chance that the girl could still be carrying a Dark curse.

'Well, if Matt wakes up, he will need to be given an examination immediately. I am reluctant to perform it on him whilst he is still unconscious.'

Ron could just about tell that the Healer was passing a wand over his own body, the blurry shapes were slightly less vague now. She straightened up.

'Okay, I need to go and check my patient in the Llewellyn Ward. Call me with this, if you need anything at all.'

The Healer handed over a blue blur, to the orange blur that was his mother, and then retreated out of the room leaving the Weasleys alone.

As soon as Ron heard the door close, he turned to the largest orange blob, and began to ask questions.

'Why were you so secretive about Mary?'

'Sweetheart. You must still be a bit fuzzy from your fall. We can't let people find out about Mary.'

Ron didn't really understand. Was he truly still a little shaken up by the collision, or was he just naturally slower than other people.

'Why?'

'Because of you!' she replied, with something approaching pride. 'You can see her. You can do something that Dumbledore can't do. Until we know why, it has to be a secret.'

'I keep telling you. I'm not special. It's obviously something to do with the invisibility spell. Somebody wants _just me_ to see Mary.'

'Well, that's the other thing. It isn't an invisibility spell.'

'Huh?'

'That diagnosis charm you cast. It should have detected an invisibility spell.'

'So I clearly cast it wrong.'

'Dumbledore has your memories of the day,' Ginny interrupted. 'He would be able to tell if you cast the spell wrong.'

'Listen to your sister, and stop doubting yourself,' his mother advised. 'Your father spent a few hours discussing the ramifications of all this with Dumbledore yesterday, after they had scared the Death Eaters away from Privet Drive.'

'So what does it all mean?'

'As far as he can guess, Professor Dumbledore thinks that Mary is naturally invisible.'

'Naturally invisible? Maybe a witch could develop a power like that, but she's a Muggle.'

'We know, but just because it doesn't make sense, doesn't mean it isn't true.'

'And what does this mean for me? I mean, if it really isn't a spell, then why can I see her? That makes even less sense.'

'Albus still hasn't shared his theories on that one,' Mrs. Weasley admitted. 'Though maybe if you'd been a little politer with him, he'd be more inclined to share things.'

'Dumbledore's not like that,' Ron argued back. 'Besides, he told me that he understood why I was being so grumpy with him.'

'Plus,' Ginny added, 'he still likes Harry, and Harry completely destroyed his office last year.'

'Well, either way, he isn't talking. Apparently he just kept saying that it was nothing to worry about, and then changing the subject.'

Ron was disappointed that the answers to his questions seemed to be making him more, rather than less, confused.

'And where's Mary?'

'Isn't she here?' asked Ginny. 'We said that she should wait at the Burrow with Harry and Dad, but we weren't sure if she agreed with us or not...'

'We weren't even sure if she was in the same room as us when we were talking to her,' continued his mother.

'Well, she definitely isn't here, so she either paid attention to you, or else she couldn't work out how to follow you through the Floo network,' Ron explained.

He gathered himself.

'Mum?'

'Yes?'

'Can I go over to see Matt?' he asked, meekly.

'I don't think you should,' his mother replied. 'You've only just woken up.'

'My body feels fine, and I need to be closer to him. I can't see him from here.'

'Seeing him won't help him. There's no point in pushing yourself yet.'

'I'm the reason that he's in here. Please...'

'Ron...'

'I'm going over there, whether you help me or not.'

A hand took his, which made Ron gasp. He could tell from the softness of the skin that it was his sister, not his mother.

'Come on. You'll only trip over something if you try on your own.'

Ron swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat up. Aside from a little soreness, he really didn't feel too bad. Standing was more difficult. Both of his knees seemed to be unwilling to straighten. Intense pain accompanied the stilted movement, and eventually his mum realised that he was committed to making the trip across the room, and began to assist. Together, the painful journey was not too eventful, though Ron was very grateful to reach the seat besides Matthew's bedside.

Tentatively, Ron reached out a hand, and placed it on top of the bedclothes. He could feel the chest moving up and down.

'Ron. That's not very respectful.'

'Sorry. But I can't see him properly, and I just wanted to check he was there.'

He drew the hand back steadily, but as it slipped down the mound of Matthew's chest, it came into contact with a bare arm, which was lying on top of the hospital sheets. Instinctively, Ron felt down for the hand, and took it with a light squeeze. Hoping that his mum and sister didn't think it was weird, but not really caring too much, he leant over, and whispered very quietly into the boy's ear.

'You have to wake up. And not just because I feel guilty. You've made me feel some scary things in the last few hours. I need to know what they mean...'

Matthew didn't respond: Ron had never really suspected that he would. It was only after Ginny and Mrs. Weasley had led him back to his own bed and tucked in the covers, that Matt croaked out a sentence.

'Hello? Where am I?'

Timing in real life is never quite as perfect as it is in stories.

- HPHPHP -

Healer Sanborne was delighted to discover that Matthew had woken when she was called back into the room. She spent ten minutes fussing over him, casting brain function scans and asking questions to test his memory. Then suddenly, seemingly satisfied, she became businesslike.

'I need to perform a scan now, to check whether you have any Dark magic attached to you.'

'Why would you think I had any Dark magic attached to me?'

'We're worried about what made Mr. Weasley lose control of his broom. Carrying a passenger shouldn't normally be a problem, especially for somebody on a school Quidditch team. But Ron claims that he was magically distracted.'

'And you think I had something to do with it?'

'Not intentionally, I'm sure. After all, you suffered just as much damage from the fall yourself, if not more. Besides, a Muggle wouldn't be able to cause the distraction that Ron described.'

'Well, you can do your test, but I think that that old wizard... What's his name? Dumbledore, already tested me for spells like that...'

Mentioning Dumbledore again was probably a mistake, because when Healer Sanborne replied, it was in a slightly sharper tone than usual.

'Dumbledore is not a trained Medi-wizard, so if you'll excuse me...'

She flicked the same wand movement that Ron had been taught the previous day in Matt's direction.

'Hmm... Interesting.'

'What? What is it?' Matthew asked impatiently, before anybody else had time to ask the same thing.

'Well, there is definitely no Dark magic here, but there are a number of other spells.'

'Other spells?' asked Mrs. Weasley.

'There appears to be a strong Trusting Charm on the boy, and a few different jinxes, which all have the same purpose.'

'What purpose?' asked Ginny.

'To make you like this boy more strongly and more quickly than you normally would.'

- HPHPHP -

Ron felt like he had been completely violated. He had been tricked by magic into fancying another man! He knew that he had always been susceptible to mental attacks (he had never been able to fight of the Imperius curse, and he had been one of the most strongly affected by the Veela women at the Quidditch World Cup) but even so, this was unbelievable. A few light affection charms had been enough to make Ron develop a crush on a member of the same sex. Maybe there was something truly wrong with him. Even the girls in the house hadn't been entranced like Ron had.

The spells had clearly been intended to make Petunia and Vernon Dursley trust the kid and invite him into their home. Ron couldn't understand how Dumbledore had missed the charms when he had checked for enchantments. His faith in the Headmaster had always been based on the assumption that Dumbledore didn't make mistakes - not basic mistakes like this anyway...

The enchantments had been lifted now, but Ron was purposefully keeping his distance. His mum and Ginny seemed shocked at how cold he was being towards Matthew, especially considering that it was Ron's own fault that Matt was in a hospital bed. It was just difficult to behave normally. Obviously, the Muggle himself knew what was wrong and why, but the rest of the people in the room seemed utterly bemused by the abrupt change in dynamic.

Mr. Weasley stopped by on his way to work, about an hour after Matt had woken up. He fussed over his son embarrassingly, and that distracted Ron from his worries momentarily, but the distraction was short-lived, and within five minutes of his father's departure, the atmosphere was very tense again. It was a great relief to everyone when, in the early hours of the afternoon, both boys were both given the all-clear to leave the hospital.

'I can't believe that we can go home already!' Matt was saying.

'Magical medicine is far better than the Muggle stuff,' Ginny replied simply.

'Tell me about it! I can't believe that you thought I was about to die this morning! I feel absolutely fine now!'

Ron tuned the conversation out, and took a handful of Floo powder. It was ridiculous that he could ever have liked a Muggle. Matt didn't know _anything_.

- HPHPHP -

'Oh, thank God you're alright, Ron!' came Mary's voice, as Ron stepped clumsily from the fireplace. 'I thought I was going to be all on my own again.'

She gathered him into a relieved hug. Ron extricated himself quickly.

'Don't worry. I'm made of tougher stuff than that!'

There was nobody else in the front room, though Ron could hear Harry's heavy footsteps on the creaking Burrow staircase, as he bounded downstairs to greet his friend.

'How's Matt?' asked the selectively invisible girl.

'Fine,' grunted Ron, unenthusiastically.

'What's wrong? Has something else happened?'

But at that second, Harry burst through the door, just as Matthew stumbled from the fireplace. Instead of trying to catch the boy, Ron stepped out of the way, so that he wouldn't be bowled over. Matt ended up in a heap on the floor.

'You'll get the hang of it eventually,' laughed Harry, as he helped the tanned teenager to his feet. 'I can nearly do it smoothly now.'

'Not that it'll matter,' Ron added. 'I doubt you'll ever use the Floo network again. There won't be much point after Dumbledore's sorted things out at your house.'

'I'm sure he'll want to keep in touch with you though, Ron,' Mary cut in. 'Why are you being so weird?'

Ron pretended that she hadn't said anything. There was a long pause. To Harry and Matthew, who hadn't heard Mary's question, it probably seemed even longer.

'Ron!' Mary snapped.

'Er... Can you keep my mum busy, when she gets back?' Ron said, to Harry. 'I need to talk to Mary in private.'

Without waiting for a response, he slipped out of the room.

- HPHPHP -

Ron had stormed halfway down the garden, by the time Mary managed to catch up with him. Firmly grabbing his shoulder, she yanked him round to face her.

'What the hell is going on, Ron?' she asked, irately.

'It's magical. You wouldn't understand.'

'Oh, I wouldn't, would I?' Mary yelled. 'Why don't you try me?'

'Because it's not really any of your business.'

'Your business is my business now,' she argued. 'I depend on you completely. Anything that upsets you is going to have an effect on me...'

'Well,' Ron replied, softening slightly, 'Maybe that's true, but I'm still not ready to talk about it yet.'

'You _need_ to talk about it, Ron. Do you know how worried Harry's been about you? He's not been able to sit still all morning, and you barely even noticed him when you got home.'

Ron looked abashed, and floundered for a response. His delay gave Mary time to continue.

'What did Matthew do to you? You were practically wrapped around his finger like a little puppy dog this morning.'

'Hey!' Ron snapped, and he was unable to suppress a sickly grimace.

'How could he offend you so badly, so quickly? If anything, I'd have expected you to be even more protective of him since the accident.'

'He hasn't done anything!'

'So?' Mary asked, leadingly. 'For fuck's sake, stop being cryptic, and explain what's going on.'

Ron snapped. The answer burst out of him, uncontrollably.

'I was enchanted! I'm not gay! The Death Eaters had put some attraction charms on Matt, and I felt them, and got confused.'

Mary let that sink in for a second or two. Ron could tell that she was trying to come up with some advice, but it looked as though she was struggling.

'And you've got proof that you were enchanted?' she finally managed.

'Well, yeah. The mediwitch found loads of affection spells on him.'

'But... Do you know, for sure, that they're the reason you fancied him?'

'Of course. What else would it be? I've never had a gay thought before today...'

'Maybe...' Mary agreed. 'but, and please don't be angry with me for suggesting this, but perhaps this has just given you an excuse to deny the truth. Is there any way to check whether you were affected by the spells?

Ron tried to keep his temper in check, and answer the question impartially.

'No, magic doesn't work like that. Matt had the spell placed on him. It was probably affecting everybody in the house, but it doesn't leave any trace on the rest of us.'

'So, if the spell was strong enough to make you doubt your sexuality, how come I didn't fall in love?'

'Maybe you're immune, in your condition,' Ron suggested, sensibly.

'I was just an example. What about Ginny? Or Harry, come to think of it.'

'He was only flirting with me. He never tried to make anybody else like him.'

'Well, okay,' Mary accepted. 'I'm not going to pretend that I understand how magic works. If you're sure that this is a magical thing, then I'll trust you. But please, make sure you're not just looking for an excuse to be _normal_. It'll only upset you in the long run. Not to mention Matthew.'

'Fine. I'll try and think about it. Not that I want to.'

'Good. Now, are we going back inside? Harry'll want to know that you're okay. He was fidgeting like mad while you were in hospital. I tried to keep him company, but since he couldn't tell that I was there, it didn't work very well.'

'No, I can't go inside yet. I'm not ready to face everybody,' Ron pleaded. 'I need to stay out here a bit longer. I promise that I'll give it some thought though, just... Just give me a little more time. Harry will understand - I'll explain it to him later.'

'Really?'

'Well, not the truth, obviously, but I'll tell him something...'


	5. One Day Of Pure And Simple Happiness

**Chapter Five: One Day of Pure and Simple Happiness**

The sun was shining more brightly than it had for a month, and Ron sat on the slightly damp bench in the corner of his garden. It bowed gently under his weight, it was mostly held up by magic now: Hagrid had used the bench a few times in past summers, and its structural integrity had been severely compromised. Mary's words flowed through his head, but it wasn't appealing to think about things more deeply. She was right, it was a lot easier to use the revelations at St. Mungo's to deny the whole incident had happened.

Being a coward about it wasn't going to help anybody though. This needed working out. If he was gay, that was something he needed to know. Trying to work out how he felt about Matt was never going to work. The charms had been acting for the entire time they'd been together. His feelings couldn't be trusted in that regard. The only way to work out his feelings for Matt was to spend more time with the boy, and that didn't sound like much fun right now. Thinking about another boy might work, but who? Everybody of his own age went to Hogwarts. The thought of sexualising somebody he knew was frightening: he'd have to spend time with them later.

There were hints though. Ron couldn't deny it. His only serious crush had been on Hermione, and now he couldn't get excited about the prospect of a relationship with her. No other girl had really turned his head, aside from girls using Veela magical powers. Affection charms were nowhere near as powerful as Veela magic. Ron tried to think back to Charms lessons. What had Professor Flitwick said about emotional charms and jinxes? He racked his brain: luckily this topic had come up in the last term, because his memory for lessons was very short. What had the professor said? Ron pictured the small man standing on his pile of textbooks and addressing the class.

'There is a difference between the effect of transient and active charms. Active charms can be used to provoke strong feelings in a subject, whereas transient charms act weakly on the surrounding environment. In other words, it is possible to cast a spell at somebody to make them trust you deeply, but if you apply a charm to yourself, you will be a little more trusted by everybody around you. The level of effect that can be achieved with a transient charm is very limited. If the target audience already deeply mistrusts you, it won't produce any noticeable effect. Emotional manipulation is notoriously difficult to achieve.'

So Matt was carrying transient charms. Strong enough to make another boy completely adjust his sexuality? Ron was pretty sure that his charms teacher would have said not. Unless Ron was more susceptible to emotional manipulation than the average boy, that only seemed to leave the one option. He was gay, or bisexual at the very least. It was the second time in the same day that he'd come to this conclusion, and it wasn't much easier to stomach this time.

Ron stood, not really knowing what to do. He still wasn't keen to head inside. Absently he began to walk towards the end of the garden, and as he reached the gate, he decided that a decent stroll might be what he needed to clear his head. Ottery St. Catchpole wasn't too far away, and the jeans and T-shirt he was wearing would comfortably pass for Muggle dress (though non-magical people wouldn't recognize the 'Weird Sisters' logo across his chest). He slipped through the gate, turned left, and began to head down the rough stone driveway towards the village.

- HPHPHP -

The weather had drawn people down into the village in large numbers. Ron didn't often venture out during the holidays. There was an unspoken understanding that wizards kept themselves away from Muggles wherever possible, and Ron hadn't really done anything to challenge the status quo. As a child he'd mostly been taken into Ottery St. Catchpole as part of a treat, visiting the local ice cream shop, or as part of a lesson in Muggle culture, normally accompanied by his enthralled father.

The High Street was bustling. Ron hadn't brought his wallet with him, but the locals wouldn't have accepted wizarding money anyway, so it was a moot point. Sitting on another bench, this one more sturdy, he started people-watching. There were a lot of teenagers lingering around the village. Two dark-haired boys of about 14 were taking it in turns to show off with skateboards in the square opposite. A blond boy with short spiky hair, who looked slightly older, was watching and trying to egg them on into more difficult and dangerous stunts.

They all looked so carefree, they didn't know about the war that was coming. If Voldemort won, they would learn. Muggle society would crumble and non-magical people would be enslaved or slaughtered in vast numbers. And once Britain had fallen, there wouldn't be resistance across the rest of the world. Ron knew that the British wizarding community was one of the strongest, and historically it had been one of the biggest advocates of Muggle rights. After Britain had fallen, some European countries would follow Voldemort's cause willingly, and with the might of multiple powerful nations behind him, he would be unstoppable in a bid for global domination.

The blonde boy stood up, distracting Ron from morbid thoughts, and beckoned one of the others to give him a skateboard. Taking it, he ran up a set of stone steps leading to the ice cream shop that Ron had fond memories of. Placing the board at his feet, and giving himself a brief run up, he headed back towards the steps. Ron held his breath, he wasn't familiar with skateboards, but he couldn't imagine that skating down steps was easy. The blond boy leant back, flicked the board up beneath him, and with a jump, landed on the hand-railing running down the steps. With a loud grinding noise, the board slid down the rail, coming to land safely in the square. Ron released his breath, a newfound admiration for the Muggle.

The boy handed back the skateboard. Neither of the others seemed keen to emulate his stunt, and since they weren't likely to compete with his display, they skated away towards a small clothing shop, and taking up their boards, disappeared inside. Ron looked around for other people to watch, but not seeing anybody particularly interesting, stood and followed the boys into the small boutique.

The shop was dimly lit, and was occupied by a young woman, sitting behind a checkout with her feet resting on the counter top. Her face was partially obscured by a glossy magazine entitled 'Now!', but the part of her face which was visible had the orange-brown hue of artificial tan. The boys were huddled around a selection of T-shirts with skull logos. One of the shirts actually looked very similar to the Dark Mark, a snake entwined around a skeletal figure. Suppressing a shudder, Ron looked at the clothing more objectively. The items in the shop would not have been accepted by the wizarding world as 'suitable for men'. There were T-shirts with sequins on them, or silver threading. Some of the T-shirts were of very flimsy fabric, more suited for blouses or dresses. The price tags that Ron could see were in the region of £30 to £40. If he remembered correctly, that was about 7 Galleons, ridiculously expensive for a T-shirt! One of the mannequins was wearing jeans that were ripped at the knees, and had patches of different fabric attached roughly to the legs. Ron himself had jeans that looked in better condition than these, and yet they were trying to charge enough money to buy a gold cauldron, or a cheap broomstick.

Looking around, Ron spotted the two dark haired boys, looking at belts towards the rear of the shop, underneath a sign that read 'Changing Room'. The woman watching the store kept casting suspicious glances at them, over the top of her magazine. There were no other people in the shop, the blonde boy was nowhere to be seen. The younger boys had turned their attentions to wooden jewellery, pendants on black string. That was another rarity for men in the wizarding world, but as he had already seen Matthew's jewellery, he knew that it was more common for Muggles, gay ones at the very least.

The blonde boy exited the changing rooms, wearing a thin purple T-shirt with a golden logo inscribed across the front. He was still wearing his own jeans, dark blue with faded and slightly threadbare knees. Ron couldn't be certain, but he was fairly sure that the knees had not been designed that way. This was from general wear and tear, probably from quite a lot of falling off skateboards.

'What do you think?' he asked his younger friends.

Ron mentally assessed the boy from behind a stand of hats. He was slender, his body was similar to Matt's. He shook his head from that line of reasoning. Comparisons to Matthew weren't going to be very impartial. The differences were marked. The spiky blond hair was unusual, but interesting. The face was feminine, but he had slightly pointed features. In some ways, the boy looked a little like Draco Malfoy, but the overall impression was completely different. Draco always had a look of utter disdain across his face, whilst this guy looked confident with himself and very happy in the moment. The smile across his face was utterly contagious and Ron realised that he was also smiling involuntarily.

He left the shop, a little less confused than he had been when he had entered it. It was time to go home. He needed to talk to Matt, to clear things up, and to start over. He'd made a fool of himself today by totally over-reacting to something minor. Hermione was always telling him that he was too hot-headed. Maybe she had a point.

The purpose in Ron's stride was interrupted almost immediately on leaving the shop, as he was called by a familiar voice.

'Ron?'

There was no mistaking the dreamy tone, and Ron turned towards the source.

'Luna? What are you doing down here?' he asked.

The blonde girl was wearing a cloak of bright orange, which was drawing a lot of gazes from the non-magical villagers. Ron had known that the girl lived nearby, but hadn't expected to meet her amongst the Muggles. He had never seen her in the village before.

'I could ask you the same thing. I've been coming to the village about twice a week since we broke up for summer, and I've not seen you down here before.'

'How come?'

'My Dad's working on a potion, and he needs regular supplies. He received a tip about how dehydrated Doxy eggs can be used to make a potion for invisibility. You know that the local chemist is run by a Squib? We've managed to get a supply of magical supplies delivered through her.'

Ron didn't give his opinion on the potion. He knew that Doxy eggs were a highly restricted substance, with dangerous properties, and that no invisibility potions currently existed. Most magical forms of invisibility were based on charms, or else magical objects like Harry's cloak. The chances of a new potion being discovered via an anonymous tip to a conspiracy theorists magazine were slim to none. He decided to stick with a less confrontational topic.

'Really? Where's the chemist? I didn't know there was one.'

'It's that one over there, called 'Boots'.'

'Oh, I thought that was a shoe shop.'

'No,' Luna said, with a laugh, 'but it confused me too.'

There was a pause, before Luna continued.

'So, have you seen Harry lately? How's he been doing?'

'His house was attacked. The Death Eater's have broken through the wards, but he's fine, and so are his family. To be honest, I think he's quite glad he'll never have to go back there. He's staying at ours right now. You could come back with me if you like. I think our wards will let you through if I'm with you.'

'I'm in a bit of a rush, sorry. These eggs won't be usable for long. I need to get them back to my Dad. Maybe later in the holiday?'

'I'm sure that would be okay.'

'Tell Harry that I said hi, and I hope he's doing alright.'

'I will. Good luck with the invisibility potion.'

'Thanks Ron, we think we've nearly got it now. We just need to get the dosage managed. The last test subject exploded. It was very messy.'

Luna turned and left, leaving Ron to his imagination. He hoped that the potion was being tested on something small and nasty, like spiders. Shaking his head to clear images of exploding kittens, he refocused on the task in hand: getting back to the Burrow to make up with Matthew.

When he arrived at the lopsided house however, he was met by his mother, looking equal parts relieved and furious.

'Ronald Weasley! Where have you been? Are you trying to give me a heart attack young man?'

'Mum, I'm sorry, I needed some air. I went down to the village…'

'…without telling anybody? You were in hospital this morning. Didn't you think we might like to know where you were?'

'Something happened, Mum. I don't want to talk about it. I'm sorry…'

'That's just not good enough. I know there's Mary now, but she won't be able to help if you're attacked. There's a war on, you know.'

'Mary isn't with me. She went back into the house. She's probably with Matt, Harry and Ginny.'

'Matt went home. That's when we noticed you were gone.'

'What? What do you mean?'

'Dumbledore came back. Matt's house has been tidied up and warded. He wanted to speak to you, but we couldn't find you.'

'Couldn't he have waited?'

'We asked if he wanted to. He said there was no point. He told us to tell you that he was sorry, whatever that means.'

'I need to send him an owl. Right now. Sorry Mum, I'll… I'll explain all this to you one day. I promise.'

Not looking forward to that future conversation, Ron raced up to his room, coaxed Pigwidgeon out of his cage, and scribbled down a note:

_Matt,_

_I'm sorry I overreacted. I was scared. I know it wasn't just magic really. Write back._

_Ron._

Clipping the note to Pig's claws, he released the bird, and slumped back onto his mattress dejectedly.

- HPHPHP -

Pigwidgeon returned the next week, with no message attached to his talons. Ron was tempted to write more, but he knew that it was a bad idea. The boy had every reason to ignore his messages, and in any case, pulling somebody deeper into the chaos of the magical world was pretty irresponsible at the moment. Matt was probably better off far away from Ron.

Mary was deeply apologetic, especially after Ron had confided his change of heart. She had searched for him as soon as Matt had decided to leave, but hadn't ventured as far as the village. Her attempts to delay the boy's departure had, predictably, been fruitless. She had watched hopelessly as Dumbledore had pulled him sadly into the nothingness of Apparition.

Ron's Mum had been surprisingly understanding since the Ottery St. Catchpole incident. Ron could only assume that she had detected the extent of Ron's distress about Matt's departure, and that she had been placated by his promise to explain later. Nevertheless, he made sure to explicitly tell her where he was going every time he left the house, and how long he expected to be away.

Summer passed quickly. Mary was acting like a Patronus to Ron; he wished he could share her with the others. She was seldom upset, to her the magical world was a source of wonder, and although her situation was a source of concern, she had learned to put up with it for the time being. Any trauma in her past was blocked by her amnesia. Spending time with Mary was refreshing, because she didn't have the shadow of Voldemort in her mind. Whenever Ron ran into Harry or Ginny alone, they looked tired, and he often suspected that one or other of them had been crying. Harry's nightmares frequently woke Ron up. He had taken to placing a 'cloak of inaudibility', one of the twins' inventions, at the foot of their beds every night. It acted as a shield, preventing Harry's screams from waking the rest of the house, and granting him some privacy. Ron frequently had to calm the boy down, and although initially he had been awkward about doing this, he had become more confident about Harry's comfort zone. Simple signs of affection were gratefully received. Harry wasn't used to a gentle hand on the shoulder, or being told that everything was going to be okay.

Ron wanted to track down the Dursleys and hex them into next week. Nobody should feel so unwanted and unloved, especially not Harry, without whom the world would probably already be under Voldemort's control.

Ron noticed another thing, during his nightly vigils over his friend. Recent revelations had not affected the way he felt for Harry. Ron cared for the boy massively, and owed him a lot, but his feelings were not developing in any unwelcome ways. He felt for Harry as he felt for his brothers. Well, no, he felt for Harry considerably more than he felt for his brothers. Harry had never accidentally set Ron on fire, or turned his teddy bear into a giant spider. Nevertheless, it was the same sort of emotion. The realisation was very reassuring. Knowing that his sexual discovery didn't necessarily need to affect his friendships made things a lot easier. Telling Harry was still going to be difficult, but there was no rush, especially now that Matt wasn't there to make the whole issue more pressing.

- HPHPHP -

September the first approached with a certain inevitability. In spite of their chat in the village, Luna hadn't been able to visit before the end of summer, but she came over the night before school was due to start, and slept in Ginny's room, bags packed ready to travel to Hogwarts with the Weasleys the next day.

Keen to regale them with tales of potion-making (predictably unsuccessful to date) she lifted the spirits of the others, but even so, she noticed the mood was low, and sensing that Ron was less effected, confronted him about it.

'They need cheering up, Ron,' she said, plainly, whilst they were in the kitchen together, making a pot of tea.

Mary nodded her agreement, but a decision had been made to keep her existence a secret from Luna for the time being. Ron trusted Luna implicitly, but at the same time, he was quite grateful that he didn't have to listen to all of her bizarre theories. No doubt she would have some pretty extreme ideas about exactly what Mary might be or why Ron could see her when nobody else could.

'You're right,' Ron agreed, 'but I don't know how. I've been trying, I really have.'

'Well, I think we should start by giving them the perfect day, tomorrow. If we really go out of our way to make sure that nothing gets to them, and to keep them cheerful, hopefully it'll last for a while.'

Ron was doubtful, but any plan was better than nothing, and keeping himself distracted was as good a reason as any to attempt it.

- HPHPHP -

Promisingly, Harry slept peacefully that night, and Ron didn't have to comfort the boy from any Voldemort visions or nightmares. Ron had set an alarm to go off at dawn, but it did not disturb Harry: once again, the ingenuity of the twins had taken care of that.

Collecting the bags he had packed the night before, he crept downstairs, and into the kitchen, where he met Luna, who was already boiling a kettle and hunting through drawers.

'Good morning, Ron,' she greeted him, sounding more bright than he felt at this time of day. 'Where do you keep your cooking utensils?'

'That drawer over there,' Ron said, beckoning towards the unit beside the gas hobs. The flow of his thoughts were interrupted by a yawn, but he soon recovered. 'I'll butter some bread rolls, while you cook the bacon then?'

Mary entered the room, and Ron sleepily greeted her with an unthinking 'Good Morning,' before catching himself, and pretending that it had been directed at Luna. She regarded him curiously, sensing the awkwardness of the greeting, but seemed to accept the misdirection. Ron inwardly cursed himself for being so absent-minded, as Mary began to chat away happily.

Ron had discovered that it was deeply frustrating to be the only person capable of hearing Mary. She was very talkative, especially when she was excited, and although she was friendly, and very pleasant company, she could go on for hours if the room was otherwise silent. In a situation like this one, where he had to pretend that he couldn't hear her, there was a constant stream of noise to listen to, and it was very difficult to pay full attention to his surroundings.

'I'm so excited about Hogwarts!' she was saying. 'I can't believe I get to go to a magical school! Will I get to see that Dumbledore guy again? And get to see proper Quidditch matches, and see magical lessons? You'll be able to cast spells there right?'

Luckily Luna was a very focused cook in the kitchen, and aside from once suggesting that a Wrackspurt might have robbed Ron of coherent thought (apparently not a serious occurrence), she seemed mostly oblivious to his distraction. It wasn't long before they had a platter full of steaming hot bacon butties ready for eating, magically charmed to stay hot by the tray they were sitting on, alongside a piping hot pot of tea, and a cafetiere full of coffee.

'Okay,' Luna said. 'You know the plan for today. We make sure that nothing gets to Harry and Ginny, and we make sure they don't know we're going out of our way to do it for them.'

'Yeah, and above all else, we keep Malfoy away from Harry on the Hogwarts Express. It doesn't matter how much he wants revenge for his father. He isn't going to get a chance to taunt Harry until after today. Not that Harry wouldn't kick his ass in a duel,' Ron added. 'He's already proved that enough times.'

'That's not the point,' Luna said. 'If we can stop Harry from thinking about the war today, we're going to. Now go and wake him up and tell him about breakfast. Hopefully he won't be too upset about the early start if he knows we've made food.'

'We could let them sleep in a bit longer. The bacon will stay hot…'

'No, there's no point risking a mad rush later when they need to get ready to leave, that will just make them more stressed. We're going to do this properly.'

Ron took a bacon sandwich from the platter, coated it in tomato sauce and bit down on it as he began to climb the stairs. The plan didn't leave him much chance to get food, so he was making the most of the opportunity.

- HPHPHP -

Ron was amazed how smoothly the 'morning' section of the plan had gone. It had been accomplished without a hitch. Most of the planning had centred around keeping his mother happy, so that she wouldn't shout about their disorganisation.

When Harry had reluctantly left his bed to get breakfast, Ron had taken a shower. While Harry had been taking a shower, Ron had been neatening up the bedroom, stripping the quilts and pillows and tidying the last of Harry's holiday stuff back onto Harry's bed to make it easier for him to pack for school. Then he'd kept the boy company whilst he organised his new schoolbooks and equipment into his suitcase for the new term. Luna had been doing a similar job for Ginny. With more than half an hour before the Hogwarts Express was due to depart, the four of them (five if you counted Mary) were standing downstairs and ready to leave, much to Ron's mother's bewilderment.

Because of the return of Voldemort, which was finally being acknowledged by the Ministry of Magic, Floo connections had been set up to platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross station for security. Ron volunteered to go first, ostensibly to make sure that Mary got through the network safely, but in reality it was to check that Malfoy wasn't lingering around the King's Cross fireplaces, and to remove him if he was.

Stepping into the Burrow fireplace, he wrapped his arms tightly around Mary. This was going to be uncomfortable, the Floo network was designed for single users. Ron had travelled with his father as a child, but he wasn't a child any more.

'King's Cross Station', he said, clearly, throwing a pinch of Floo powder into the grate.

As his body was enveloped by green flames, Ron knew it had worked. He felt Mary being dragged along with him through the network. Almost immediately, his shoulders were sliding against stonework. Every time there was a groove in the passage walls, he felt it clip his body as the pair span together. His elbow was grazed by a brick that wasn't flush with the rest, and he began to worry that he was going to suffer a more serious injury. Luckily it was over seconds after it started. Ron clamped onto Mary tightly as the pair spun to a halt. She stumbled, but he was used to fireplace travel, and he held her upright.

They strode out from the central fireplace in a row of five, in the hidden magical section of King's Cross station. Luna was already stepping out of the fireplace next to them, so clearly taking the Floo network in tandem had slowed them down.

'Have you seen Draco yet?' she asked, turning to them.

'No, we only just got here,' he replied.

'We?'

Ron grimaced, but found a way to distract Luna from the mistake.

'Oh look, there he is.'

He pointed over to where Malfoy was climbing into one of the rearmost carriages of the Hogwarts Express.

'Okay, so if you make sure you get a compartment near the front,' she said, 'I'll find some Ravenclaws to sit with in the middle of the train. If he tries to come past, I'll turn him round.'

'Wait,' Ron argued. 'That wasn't part of the plan. How are you going to do that? Draco's dangerous, and he's going to be out for blood since his Dad was arrested.'

'I have a plan, Ron. Don't worry…'

'Okay, but I'm setting up a Supersensory Charm around your compartment so I'll know if you're in trouble. If you think he's out to cause damage, try to talk him down, and I'll get there as quick as I can. I'll try to bring Hermione.'

Ron didn't have the faintest idea how to perform a Supersensory Charm, but he had a far simpler plan. Mary was going to act as his lookout in Luna's compartment. The second Malfoy attempted to pass the Ravenclaw's path, Mary would come and let him know, whilst Luna slowed him down. If Luna managed to stop the boy and his bodyguards without assistance, all the better, but Ron wanted to be alerted in advance, just in case.

- HPHPHP -

It didn't seem too weird to Harry and Ginny when Ron told them that Mary had disappeared to explore the school train. He had half-considered pretending that she was sharing the cabin with them, but he had decided against it, he wasn't great at lying. Harry had seemed understanding of Mary's need to explore. He amongst them knew how exciting it was to be an unsuspecting Muggle thrust into the magical world. Ron almost felt guilty when he heard Harry reminiscing about his first experiences of magic. Mary _should_ be exploring the train, not acting as a spy on some Death Eater in training. Still, she had followed Luna willingly, and she was quite likely to see combative magic, as an interloper at any confrontation between the Slytherin and a friend of Harry Potter's.

As he boarded the train with his friend and his sister, Neville Longbottom brushed past, heading in the opposite direction, and clumsily knocked Ron aside.

'Sorry,' he said, 'Gran just called me off the train. I've probably forgotten something.'

Thinking quickly, Ron used the boy's apology as an excuse to pass on a quiet message.

'Neville. Find Luna. Sit with her for the journey. Please. It's a favour for Harry. She'll explain everything.'

Neville looked up, seeing Harry's back retreating down the train corridor, and nodded back.

'Sure,' he agreed, with a smile. 'Been a while since I've seen her anyway. Will be good to catch up.'

'Neville!' came an old but firm voice.

An elderly lady in a green pointed hat, topped with a stuffed vulture, was approaching. She moved with a purpose belying her obvious age. In one hand was clutched a red handbag, and in the other, a large brown parcel, tied with string.

'Oh, I better go,' Neville said, with a pained tone. 'I knew I'd leave something at home. Lucky the Floo network's been set up, or Gran would have had to post it. See you at the feast.'

- HPHPHP -

Hermione was waiting in the compartment with Harry and Ginny when Ron reached it. She was deep in conversation, and it wasn't until Ron had taken his seat that he realised that he was the subject of the chat.

'So,' Hermione asked, 'is this Mary girl here now?'

The tone was conversational, maybe a little concerned, as was to be expected, but Ron thought he could detect something else in her voice. Was she getting jealous? It was definitely possible. Ron knew that he had been jealous of any significant men in Hermione's life for the last two or three years.

'Mary went to explore the train,' Ron said. 'She headed off with Luna, so she's probably eavesdropping on lots of juicy Crumple-Horned Snorkack gossip right now.'

'It's really strange though. It's amazing. Why you? Is there anything you can think of, any reason you'd be able to see her?'

'Beats me. I've been asking myself the same question all summer. It's definitely been eventful.'

'Eventful? That's an understatement! You can do something that Dumbledore can't do. I can't believe you didn't write to me about this!'

'You know how I felt last year then,' Harry said, pointedly. 'We wrote to you about the stuff we could say in letters, but a lot of it was too sensitive for owl post.'

'I meant to write back, I really did, but Pigwidgeon wouldn't stay still long enough for me to attach my letter. I was honestly this close,' Hermione indicated with her thumb and forefinger, 'to using magic to freeze him. I've been stuck in the Muggle world. You need to get yourself a telephone or something.'

'Stupid bird,' Ron said. 'He's been really restless lately. If I'd know I'd have borrowed Hedwig. Sorry.'

'Anyway, I heard about the hospital trip.'

'Oh, it was nothing. Stupid accident. I assume you heard about the Muggle bringing down Harry's wards.'

Ron was keen to turn the conversation away from himself. His choice of topic bought him a solid forty minutes of talk about Harry's escape from Privet Drive. Ultimately though, the conversation drifted back to Mary, just as the train was passing through Yorkshire.

'How come she's coming to Hogwarts then?' Hermione asked.

'Well, it's because of me. She needs to be near me really. Dumbledore's being really secretive about it, but from what we can tell, he doesn't want to tell people outside the Order about her. I'm not sure why, I think… maybe he thinks she's useful or important to the war. Anyway, even if he did tell other people about her, for some reason, I'm the only person that can use magic on her at the moment. Unless he finds somebody else who can see her, he's going to be reliant on me to fix the problem.'

'No pressure, hey?' said Harry, with a light smile.

- HPHPHP -

The train had already passed the Scottish border before Mary entered the compartment. She sauntered in casually, and addressed Ron in a calm voice.

'I saw Draco Malfoy,' she said. 'He tried to pass Luna's compartment, but you don't need to worry. He's not on his way. I have no idea why, but if Harry really hates him, you should bring him with you. He'll want to see this.'

Relaying the message, Ron stood and led the others down the train.

It was obvious when they reached the compartment that Luna and Neville had taken. The corridor was littered with four bodies, which were surrounded by onlookers. Luna was standing over them, looking down, her mouth slightly agape. She looked up at the arrival of the Gryffindors.

'I swear to Merlin, I only used Gnothi Seauton. I didn't do this to them.'

'You used what?' Ron asked. He could tell that Harry was thinking the same thing.

'Gnothi Seauton. It makes people argue amongst themselves,' Hermione said, supplying the answer. 'Or, at least, that's how it's normally used.'

'I hit Draco with it,' Luna continued. 'I thought he'd start arguing with the others or something, but it was scary. Honestly, I've never seen anybody like that. He was like an animal. He span around and took Crabbe and Goyle down in about a second. Nott just stood and watched, he couldn't believe it. Luckily he snapped out of his trance in time to take Draco down, or I don't know what he'd have done next.'

'So who stopped Nott?' Ginny asked.

'Oh,' Neville said, appearing from the adjacent train compartment. 'That was me. Nott seemed to work out that we had something to do with it. Opened the door with his wand raised. I didn't really see much option.'

'Nice,' Ron said. 'Good work. So what spell did Malfoy use?'

'Dunno,' Neville replied. 'Doesn't look like anything I've seen in Defence classes. Nott just used Stupefy on Draco, and I used the same on Nott, but we can't tell what the other spells were.'

'We should move them out of the way,' Harry suggested. 'I think we passed an empty compartment on the way down here. I suppose somebody ought to check they're going to be okay though first. Hermione?'

- HPHPHP -

Whether Draco and his cronies woke before the end of the train journey, Ron didn't know, but they didn't cause any further trouble. They had been left propped against each other in the empty compartment. To an external observer, they were merely sleeping, although the Gryffindors had not been able to resist the temptation to position them in 'slightly too friendly' poses.

The train was soon pulling into Hogsmeade station, and students were disembarking haphazardly. Hagrid was there as usual, greeting first years, who looked up at him with a mixture of fear and awe. Mary was reacting similarly, although she had heard a lot about Hagrid from the stories that had been told at the Weasley house over the summer. It took all of Ron's willpower to convince Mary to come with them on the horseless carriages, and not to follow Hagrid and the group of children down to the boats across Hogwarts' lake.

Ron knew that the carriages were not really horseless, they were drawn by Thestrals, but only people who had witnessed death could see the skeletal horses. Mary couldn't see the creatures, but Ron didn't know what that meant. Even if she had witnessed death in her past, she couldn't remember it. It was possible that as a Muggle, she wouldn't be able to see the Thestrals anyway, he couldn't remember exactly what Hagrid had said about the animals in their lessons: he'd been too busy trying to avoid having his clothing nibbled by the invisible horses.

Harry seemed to be in a cheerful mood. He was chatting to Ginny in the back of the carriage. Ron didn't even need to look at his sister to know that she would be smiling too. She always did when Harry was around. Really, keeping the pair happy for the day was more a matter of keeping Harry happy, and making sure that Ginny could see it.

Neville was talking with Luna and Hermione about 'Gnothi Seauton', but Ron wasn't listening intently. He was looking out on the road ahead with Mary, waiting for Hogwarts to appear around the bend, excited to witness her reaction. Nobody could see Hogwarts for the first time without being impressed.

'And wait until you see the Hogwarts feast!' he said, finishing another long monologue on his school.

'You told me about that…' Mary replied, happily. 'I can't remember my own school, but I doubt I ever talked about it enthusiastically as you do!'

'Oh, don't get me wrong, I still get pretty bored in most of my lessons, but the school is amazing! Wait, you'll be able to see it in about a second.'

And there it was. Mary gasped and grabbed Ron's hand.

'I don't know about Harry and Ginny, Ron, but I've had an amazing day.'


End file.
